


Muse

by PrincessKitty1



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Out of Character, Past Rape/Non-con, this fic has been on FF since 2010 y'all know what this is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:06:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23839582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessKitty1/pseuds/PrincessKitty1
Summary: "You'll always be a whore, just like your mother." Those words had been her undoing. Now years later, amidst the brokenness of her life there came this strange man, asking for what no one else ever had: Her heart.(This fic was written ten years ago. I'm simply cross-posting it to AO3.)
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Nelliel Tu Oderschvank, Ichimaru Gin/Matsumoto Rangiku, Ulquiorra Cifer/Inoue Orihime
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22





	1. The Prostitute

**Author's Note:**

> Figured I'd post this and my other Bleach fics while editing. If you've never read this story before, hello! I'm Princess Kitty1 and I wrote this fic ten years ago when the internet was a very different place. Like everyone else who picked up this story in 2010, you might be wondering, "What the heck is she thinking?" I encourage you to stick around and find out.

_“You’ll always be a whore, just like your mother.”_ Orihime Inoue recalled these words often, spoken in a drunken slur by her disgusting excuse of a father when she was merely six years old. It was one in a series of bad memories; she didn’t have many good ones. He had said this just hours after he had raped her for the first of what would become many times. Between the act and the statement she had been in the shower, furiously scrubbing at her body until her skin had gone red and raw, painful to the touch. A sad attempt at erasing what couldn’t be undone. From that day forward, she was as worthless as he said she was.

It was little surprise, then, when her elementary school teacher had held her after class on the pretense that she had done poorly on an assignment and proceeded to rape her as well. She had been numb to it. She should have screamed for help, scratched and kicked and fought for her freedom. She could have prevented it, but those words uttered from her father’s alcohol-flavored lips had imprinted themselves within her, eventually silencing her quiet protests. They were at the forefront of her mind, visible every time she closed her eyes, bright and bold against the darkness.

Whore. Just like Mom. She was a whore, a whore, a whore…

The attention given to her body had triggered an early puberty. Her chest had grown to grotesque proportions, weighing her down, a physical reminder of the burden she carried. It had drawn the eyes of teachers and students and strangers alike, and when either suggested a little fun, she went along with it. Her purity was gone, her reputation tarnished before it could even be built. She was trash, good for nothing and ready to be put out. It wasn’t until high school, though, that she had thought to make money off of it.

Her friends hadn’t known what she was doing. Her brother hadn’t known either. God, if her brother had ever found out… her brother, the only good thing in her miserable life after their parents had passed away… her brother, who had died and left her alone so suddenly. In a way, she was glad he had gone. He would never have to know that his adorable little sister, the most precious thing in the world to him, was the girl treating guys between classes for some extra spending money.

But it was his death that had indirectly caused her to be discovered. In her grief she became careless, not minding the people watching her extra close until one day, the secret was out, the jig was up. Her friends never looked at her or spoke to her again. She was expelled from school, accused by the same slime-covered teachers she had stayed after class with for “extra credit” in an effort to keep themselves from being found out. And she left willingly, making sure to give the principal a clear view of her middle finger before she’d slung her backpack over her shoulder and walked out, heels clacking against the cool tiled floor. _Good riddance_.

If there was anything that prostitution had taught her, it was that she didn’t need a high school degree to make money. There were plenty of detestable men in the world willing to pay for a good time with a minor. She earned such a killing on weekends that she could go out, get as drunk as she wanted and still have enough leftover to pay the rent on her cheap, dirty apartment. It suited her, she thought. Used, abused, and cockroach infested.

She could afford nice clothes, nice jewelry, food and over-the-counter medicines when she needed them. STD clinics tested for free, and thankfully she was clean due to her own strict rules in regards to the men she slept with. She was twenty years old—almost twenty-one—and smart. Healthy.

Life may not have been worth living, but at least it was livable.

…

Orihime had never bought into the whole “sex is for soul mates” bullshit fed to her by the media. When it came to it, all she did was lie back—or bend over—and spread her legs, fake an orgasm or two. She knew exactly when to make her moans and pants increase, how to give her client a smoldering look that had him crossing the finish line in seconds, how to writhe and arch her back _just right_.

Tonight was no different. She stared distractedly out the window, vaguely aware of motion, trying to remember this guy’s name. He was a soldier, just back from the war. He’d risked his life for the freedom she had to parade herself down the street in gaudy attire, stealing business from pimp-owned girls just to piss them off. The least she could do was remember his damn name. What the hell had it even started with? Oh well. She’d only be in trouble if he, like many others in the past, would get up the gall to order her to say his name in between the jingling of his dog tags and those ridiculous grunting noises he was making. She fought back a smile, trying to stay in character. Insert moan here. Tell him, _Yes, baby, keep it coming_. Cry out a bit. Stroke his ego, among other things. He wasn’t going to hold out much longer. It had already been half an hour. Damn those soldiers and their stamina. She had other clients to see tonight.

When it was all said and done, she collected her discarded clothing and began to redress as the soldier lit up a cigarette and watched her somewhat hungrily. “You’re awful young,” he noted, wiping sweat from the back of his neck. “What are you doin’ this for? Girl like you should be in college.” Orihime merely shrugged, pulling her tank top on over her head, tugging it over her voluminous chest, then collecting her hair into a messy ponytail. “Most of the prostitutes around here are working to get out of this hellhole,” he went on. He blew out a cloud of noxious smoke. “You ain’t got dreams or anything?”

She decided to grace him with an answer. “Nah, nothing like that.” Her eyes flickered to the glowing end of the cigarette, watching the curling smoke. Add another touch of lip gloss, and there, she was good to go. She slipped into her heels and strode over to the door, giving the soldier a bored look. “I’m already fulfilling my destiny.”

He chuckled and lifted his cigarette to her in a mock toast. “Here, here.”

Orihime sighed as she stepped out into the hallway, weaving past two small children playing tag in the motel corridor. She dug through her purse, withdrew the wad of cash she’d received from the nameless soldier and maneuvered it into her wallet. Watching him light up had prodded her craving for a cigarette. Luckily the corner store was two doors down. The clerk behind the checkout desk glanced up at her as her heels clacked against the floor. “Good night, Ms. Inoue.”

“Night Rob.” She waved tiredly, feeling the irritation gnawing at the back of her mind. Outside, the weather was humid and sticky, the heat suffocating as the end of summer rolled in. She could feel it rippling off of the pavement, having been absorbed all throughout the daylight hours. It was one of those nights, she decided. She wasn’t much into smoking but every once in a while her nicotine craving would give her a smart kick in the skull, and when it did, she had to satisfy it before her patience ran too thin. It was usually on these cigarette-hunting nights that she got really, _really_ drunk. But not before servicing her clients. They may have been up for a lot of things, but most of them didn’t appreciate being puked on.

Tonight’s excursion would take her into the Hueco Mundo district. There were a plethora of good bars there, she thought cheerfully as she entered the too-bright corner store. She picked out the cheapest pack of cigarettes they had to offer and a fifty-cent plastic lighter in green, her favorite color, before stepping back out into the muggy night. Shaking one cigarette onto her hand, she stuck it between her teeth and tucked the rest of the pack into her purse. _Just one smoke,_ she thought, scowling as the lighter refused to come to life after several strikes. _One smoke, then business, then beer. Awesome._

Finally the stupid thing lit. She took a good drag and felt the smoke fill her lungs, poisoning her to a death she was far too afraid to face. Had it not been for the fact that, upon dying, she would have to see her beloved brother and explain her lifestyle choices to him, she’d have killed herself years ago. After all, she’d had plenty of chances. It wasn’t like anyone would miss her.

The night was alive with crowds lining up outside of dance clubs and tourists drinking in the city life. Orihime exhaled, smoke leaving her mouth in a steady stream. She never thought too much about the people around her. They always looked like they were having so much fun. This city was just one of many pitstops on the roads of their lives. She felt lost among crowds. A car stuck in traffic, a ship lost at sea. Just one in billions, unimportant, undeserving of the happiness she saw reflected in everyone else’s eyes.

She cut her thoughts off by violently stamping out her cigarette, which had slipped from her shaking hands. She needed to get through with this and get drunk quickly, lest she end up a crying mess in her apartment again. Giving in to such weak thoughts… she wouldn’t allow it.

Her next two clients were simple enough. One of them was a regular who drifted into the city every now and then for work trips. He liked to tell her that visiting her was his favorite part of the trip, despite the fact that he was married with children. _Shameless bastard_ , Orihime thought, though on the outside she was the picture of lust and seduction, a wanton vixen with everything to give and nothing to inhibit her from doing so. Guys went nuts for that kind of thing.

And with those three clients, she had made close to five hundred dollars. Her rates weren’t exactly cheap these days. After all, people like her were in demand during the last month of summer, before everyone went back to school or work, leaving behind fun for responsibility. Once Orihime was finished with her rounds, she found her way to a recently opened all-night diner. It was the kind of place she’d have expected to see off a highway exit for truckers in need of coffee. Upon opening the door, her nostrils were filled with the scent of greasy food, causing her stomach to growl. But she had learned the hard way that eating anything before getting drunk would only make the bile taste that much more disgusting, so she ignored the menu items and went straight for the beer.

Two drinks later, her thoughts were quieting. Two more and they were all but gone. One after that, the bright neon signs in the diner were making her head hurt and, for some reason, she was counting the notches in the wooden bar. “Geez,” she muttered as she struggled to get out the appropriate amount of money to cover her drinks.

“Hey, Miss, you want me to call you a cab?” someone offered, though she wasn’t entirely sure where the voice had come from. Everyone’s faces, male and female, were blurring together.

“No, I’m… I’m fine,” Orihime insisted. She put the money down and slid off the bar stool. “Keep the change.” She stumbled out of the diner, her stomach turning as soon as she drank in the oppressively humid air. It smelled like it was about to rain, but the scent bothered her. Everything stank. Her cuffed shorts were giving her a serious wedgie, which she would have loved to dig out had there not been so many people around. Stopping and peering down an alley, she figured she could cut through there and pick the fabric out of her butt. Besides, it was a faster way home. Maybe.

Shoot, which way was she even going? She always got confused in the Hueco Mundo district, and being smashed didn’t help matters much. Her hand fell onto the lid of a dumpster and, realizing what she was touching, Orihime’s stomach twisted and pitched to the side. She managed to get two steps away from it before she doubled over, vomiting violently. Her insides heaved. Her temples throbbed. She mumbled an unintelligible curse as she realized she’d gotten puke on her tank top. “Ugh.” There was another one she’d have to throw away. At least this time the only mysterious stain on her clothing had been caused by her own stupidity and not some guy’s shoddy aim.

Orihime straightened and groaned as her entire world spun in a quick circle around her head. She took another step forward, but the rocking boat sensation worsened. She knew what this feeling was: she was about to faint. Her eyes locked onto the end of the alley. She could see pedestrians walking, cars passing, help just a few feet away. But she didn’t make it much farther. Her legs gave out, her ankle twisting on her four-inch heels. Her knees scraped the grime-covered pavement as she collapsed, her monstrous chest somewhat cushioning her fall.

She had to turn onto her side. There was no way she was going to choke on her own vomit. What a way to go, huh? It would have looked lovely in the newspaper, on a miscellaneous page sandwiched between a cheesecake recipe and an article about the local community center: **Prostitute found dead in alley.** She’d always had a feeling that her life would end in a similar fashion, but she couldn’t let it end tonight.

“Sora…” she muttered. Her brother’s kind face temporarily replaced the scarlet letters behind her eyelids. Her eyes filled with tears. She wanted to apologize, to make things better, but she knew better than to give in to her own feelings. After all, she only had these thoughts when she was drunk.

Orihime faded in and out of consciousness the entire night. At one point, she felt raindrops pelting her skin and momentarily worried that it would carry her vomit down and soak the entire side of her body. At another point she could have sworn she was flying, and thought that perhaps she really _had_ died. She started preparing her excuses for Sora but slipped back into darkness. When she became lucid again, it was quiet all around her. There was no more rain, but it was far too still for her to be in the alley. Something warm covered her, and she burrowed into it, inhaling the scent of clean laundry, a smell she associated with comfort. How in the world had she ended up somewhere comfortable? That wasn’t a luxury for people like her. Still, she drifted off again, and decided that whatever questions she had she could answer in the morning. _After_ her hangover was gone.

But a few hours of oblivion later, she came to her senses far too quickly. She bolted upright, eyes flying open, and immediately regretted it. “Oh…” Her head throbbed as if her very brain were thumping along to the beat of a song. Her long auburn hair fell over her shoulders, blocking out the unwelcome sunlight as she rubbed the crust from her eyes. When she dared to open them again, she noticed white fabric enclosing her arm. It was a sleeve, far too lengthy to belong to anything of hers. She looked down at her body and saw that she was dressed in a white button-up that fell loosely past her chest. It was long enough to cover her bottom, but didn’t quite reach her knees. Her tank top, shorts, and heels were gone.

Orihime observed her surroundings. It was a clean, quiet apartment, looking like something out of a house and home magazine. The furniture was plain and modest. The walls were white, the carpet a basic gray color with no design. She currently sat upright on what appeared to be a sofa bed, her long legs tangled in a series of crisp white sheets. In front of her, a console held a flat-screen television and a blu-ray DVD player. To her left was a dining table with four chairs set before an open window—her enemy—and next to it, seemingly out of place, sat a beautiful black concert grand piano.

After drinking all of this in, Orihime suddenly realized that she shouldn’t have been wasting her time checking out the view. She didn’t know where she was. The last thing she remembered was being face-down in an alley that smelled like garbage and urine. How did she get here? Where was _here,_ anyway? And what, in her drunken stupor, had she done with whoever owned this place?


	2. The Anklet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was written ten years ago.

This was not good. It wasn’t the first time it had happened either, and Orihime really wanted to kick herself for it. Hadn’t she developed a plan for dumping her alcohol dependency? Whatever happened to _that_?

The first thing she needed to do was to find _her_ clothing. From the looks and sounds of things, she was presently the only person in the tidy apartment, which was both perfect and irritating. On the one hand, she didn’t feel like sacrificing the small slice of dignity she kept for situations like this by asking a stranger what she had done with him—or her—the previous night. On the other hand, she kind of _had_ to know. What if this person wasn’t clean? What if they hadn’t used protection? Was there a miniature mix of her and a perfect stranger baking in her oven right now?

_Okay, don’t panic. Please, for the love of money, do not panic._ She took in a deep breath, steeled her resolve, then threw the blankets covering her legs aside and stood up from the sofa bed. Her head throbbed in protest, but she didn’t have time to nurse her hangover right now. She needed to grab her shit and go.

Much to her surprise, she didn’t have to walk very far to find her clothes. Her tank top and shorts were folded neatly on the arm of the sofa she’d been sleeping on, her purse resting on top of it. Strange. Usually when she woke up in these situations her things were thrown about carelessly in her customer’s haste to get her chest within his sweaty palms. But as she lifted her tank top to her nose, she picked up the same clean scent as the bed sheets. The vomit stain had also vanished. This guy had done her laundry? What the hell?

She picked up her purse and snapped it open, digging out her wallet. All of her money was still there. Not a single cent less—or more, for that matter. In fact, nothing was out of place. The un-smoked cigarettes were accounted for, albeit damp. Her five leftover sticks of gum were there too. So she _hadn’t_ slept with anyone?

Orihime tucked her tank top into the purse and slipped it over her shoulder, then quickly pulled her freshly laundered shorts on and jammed her feet into her heels. Staying in this apartment was beginning to freak her out. It was so… quiet. Peaceful. Clean. It was almost as if the place was completely detached from reality. Or her reality, anyway. She had half a mind to seek out the portrait of the straight-laced Christian family that had undoubtedly taken her in last night. Wouldn’t be the first time they’d tried to redeem the sinner.

But first, she made her way over to the open window and, with a grimace and a swear, she looked outside. “Whoa.” Here she had been expecting a two-foot drop to freedom. If she had tried to jump out of _this_ window, she’d have ended up a splatter on the pavement, not unlike a pie dropped by a clumsy child. Mmm, pie sounded nice. Perhaps she would buy herself a slice later.

Only now, she had another thing to worry about: escaping this apartment building. She scanned the surrounding area for any familiar landmarks and spotted the motel she usually rendezvoused with her “regular” at. So she was still in the Hueco Mundo district. That would make getting home a lot easier, but she still had to slip out of the tower unnoticed, and there was a fat chance of that happening. She craned her neck a bit and saw that there were at least four floors left to the place. There must have been a ton of people living here!

Orihime let the curtains fall back and turned towards the door. She couldn’t chicken out now. Certainly the apartment’s tenant would return at any minute, having gone downstairs to retrieve his mail or pay his rent, or returning from breakfast at IHOP with the entire family. The stairs would be her best option, but her foot still hurt from the twist and spill that had sent her sprawling onto the pavement, so she would have to brave the elevator. At least that way no busy-bodies could tell what floor she had come from.

She peered out of the peephole first and made sure nobody was in the hallway to see her begin her walk of shame. Then, ever so cautiously, she twisted the knob and slowly pulled the door open. She poked her head out and made extra sure that no one was around before stepping outside and closing the door behind her. Phase One: Complete. The carpeted floor dulled the sound of her high heels as they dug into the ground with each quick step that she took. She managed to make it to the elevator without alerting any nosy neighbors to her presence.

Thankfully, it seemed that nobody needed the elevator. It flew up to meet her and its doors opened with a pleasant chime, completely empty inside. Orihime stepped into it and mashed the button next to the number one. She leaned back against the wall and breathed a sigh of relief. Phase Two: Complete. What had she been worried about? She’d done this plenty of times before.

The elevator jerked into motion, but to her horror, it wasn’t going down. Orihime looked at the button she had pressed. The number one was illuminated. Nothing to its side, nothing below it. Certainly she was supposed to be traveling to the first floor, not rising to the last! “What are you doing, you stupid thing?” she hissed. She pressed the glowing button repeatedly to no avail. The elevator continued to travel upwards until it came to a stop and its doors opened onto an empty hall with the same irritatingly pleasant ding.

It was then that Orihime noticed a button with the letter **G** and a star next to it. “Oh, well, damn,” she muttered and hit that one instead. She tapped her pain-free foot impatiently as the elevator closed. But two seconds into its descent, the cart lurched into a stop. Orihime gasped, moved away from the doors, and instinctively combed her fingers through her hair before assuming a nonchalant demeanor.

The elevator opened with a ding, and in stepped a tall, busty young woman with outrageously green hair. Orihime tried not to stare, but she couldn’t help it. The girl wore a beret and a neckerchief, her shapely body enclosed in a knee-length dress with horizontal stripes and tan-colored boots. She hummed to herself, then paused, turned her head, and looked at Orihime. The elevator doors swung closed. Orihime shrank further into the corner, hoping to whatever God was listening that this woman wouldn’t start talking to her.

“ _Bonjour!_ ”

Obviously, the deities weren’t very attentive today. “Umm… hi,” Orihime replied uncertainly. This was not the smart thing to do. The woman turned to face her, all smiles, and when she opened her mouth she spoke with a French accent so thick Orihime wished she’d brought along a translator.

“You are new to building?” she asked, her eyes round and wide and as green as her fly-away hair.

“No, uh, I’m not. I’m just a… guest.” Orihime averted her gaze and hoped that would be the end of it. The woman let out a quiet ‘oh’ and turned away, but after a moment, she spoke again.

“You are one of Mr. Nnoitra’s guests, _oui_?” Then she was off on a tangent. Her arms flapped excitedly as she spoke far too quickly for Orihime to understand. “Mr. Nnoitra’s guests are always getting confused with elevator. He never explain to them, no-no. They are strictly there for, how you Americans say, romping?” She waved her hand dismissively. “Anyway, building is backwards. Man who built it was very, very strange. He make first floor literally mean top floor! Is funny, no?”

Orihime didn’t think it was very funny at all. “Sure.” Determining this as a double-dutch situation, she jumped in before the French woman could continue. “And just to clarify, I am not Mr. Nnoitra’s guest. I don’t even know who that is.”

The girl tilted her head. Then, to Orihime’s shock, her eyes narrowed in suspicion and slight animosity. “You are not guest of Grimmjow?”

“No! I don’t know who that is, either!”

Satisfied, the woman’s demeanor instantly changed back into full-blown joy. “Good! Pretty girl like you does not need to know cheating, scumbag boyfriend.” She patted Orihime on the shoulder, then withdrew her hand, then immediately stuck it back out. “My name is Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck! I am German, but, raised in France. Come to America with cheating, scumbag boyfriend to study. Call me Nel for short!”

Orihime shook her hand weakly. “Nice to meet you, Nel.” What was this girl’s problem? Did all Europeans give their life story to random strangers? “Oh!” she cried out in surprise as Nel leaned forward and kissed both her cheeks. “Umm, right.” Thankfully, the doors swung open on the ground floor before the German-French woman could ask for her name. “Do me a favor, Nel. Forget that you ever saw me!” she said before she dashed out of the elevator.

“Okay!” Nel waved at her cheerfully. “Come again to visit soon!”

Orihime smiled wryly, answering that in her mind with a resounding _no_. She hitched her purse’s strap further up her shoulder and breezed past a number of people checking their mailboxes by the elevator, her eyes on the double doors that would lead her to freedom. Daylight! Fresh air! She was almost there!

A tall, lanky body appeared in front of her and blocked her escape. Orihime looked up into a long, leering face framed by straight black hair, two eyes narrowed at her suggestively. “Hey there, little lady! What’s a hot thing like you doing walking around by yourself?” The man, or so she guessed, eyed her appreciatively and ran his eerily long tongue across his lip.

Orihime stuck a hand on her hip and shifted her weight to one side, scowled, and held out her other hand. “Rate’s gone up to five hundred a night. Take it or leave it.” The man blinked in surprise, mouth opening to speak but no sound coming forward. Was it really that surprising that she was a prostitute? It’s not like she had some angelic face with all those bags under her eyes. She sighed and pushed past him. “Get your ass out of my way,” she snapped. She turned towards her freedom once more, only to run straight into someone else. Damn it! Was there no getting out of this building? “Sorry,” she said to the young man with shaggy black hair and vivid green eyes, already side-stepping him.

“Ah, no harm done,” he replied quietly, bowing his head in a slight nod.

Orihime finally reached the doors and burst out into the warm day, all but sprinting from the building. Victory was hers! She had half a mind to do a little touchdown dance, but she was still too close for comfort. With her head held high, she strutted, limping slightly, down the sidewalk, past the building’s welcome sign. _Las Noches_. She wasn’t going to miss the place, that was for sure. Kidnapped by a Bible-toting family, accosted by a crazy French girl and then a pervert? She had better things to do, like getting that slice of pie she had promised herself. Nothing like baked goods to soothe away the stress of a hectic night!

…

Orihime ate like a pig, but it didn’t go unpunished. If she wasn’t hungover, her morning routine consisted of a jog around the park, followed by a hundred and fifty sit-ups. She was slowly building her way to three hundred, _slowly_ being the keyword. Luckily for her, upon checking the time on her cell phone—which had thankfully stayed dry during the rain last night due to its protective case—she found that it was almost noon. Her favorite bakery was open for another two hours.

She caught the bus out of the Hueco Mundo district and ignored the disdainful looks her attire attracted from older women. This whole ordeal had left her wanting a cigarette, but she would settle that craving later. For now, she would exchange nicotine for some well-deserved fat. She stared out the window as the bus passed the diner she had gotten wasted at the night before, the very thought of alcohol making her stomach gurgle. No thanks.

The bakery in question was located within a convenience store close to her apartment building, run by an eccentric man named Urahara who always wore a weird hat and wooden sandals. He also had a habit of employing children. Whether or not he actually paid them, she would never know.

It was the little girl with the perpetually sad expression who greeted her this time. “Good afternoon, Miss Orihime. Our specialty flavor of the day is apple, as Mr. Kisuke would like to welcome autumn with open arms… he says.”

“That sounds delicious. Give me a huge slice! Like, bigger than my face. I’m freaking starving,” Orihime said. She pulled a few crisp bills out of her wallet and handed them to the girl, who then hopped down from the stool on which she’d been sitting and went to retrieve the pie. Orihime’s ankle protested at the lack of motion. No doubt it was going to swell up like her customers did the moment she took her underwear off in front of them. It definitely needed some ice.

“Here you go.” The little girl placed a disposable plate on the counter that bent over from the strain of carrying the pie slice. Orihime’s mouth watered.

“Thanks. Keep the change, squirt,” she said. She grabbed the plate and a plastic spork, then made her way to the front of the store where a number of tables lined the window. Orihime set the pie down, climbed up into the high seat and allowed herself to be intoxicated by the scent of apple and cinnamon wafting upwards in rolling clouds of steam. The slice looked so perfect, so sinfully good that she almost dunked her face into it birthday cake style. But these pies were the best in town, and therefore, they had to be eaten with the utmost care. Starting with one perfect sporkful, she began carving away at the heavenly treat.

This had definitely been a strange morning, but fortunately, couldn’t be counted among her worst. She’d had days where she’d had to spend a good hour in the shower trying to shampoo all the dried gunk out of her hair. Other times she had woken up to someone humping her leg like a damn dog. One day she’d even found herself in another county. Then again, that was the first and only time she had ever taken ecstasy. Never again—one of the only promises she had ever kept to herself.

“Son of a bitch,” she muttered, and reached down to pull off her boots. That ankle was killing her! She didn’t want to look, afraid that it would be as round and grayish-blue as a Vienna sausage. But when her hand passed over her skin, she froze, eyes widening, and felt again.

Her anklet was missing.

Not just any anklet, too, but the one that her brother Sora had given her for her fourteenth birthday. The last thing he had given her before he’d died. Orihime frantically rubbed her skin from knee to toe, but found no anklet. That was impossible. She _never_ took the thing off! Not when she slept, not when she showered, not when she worked. That anklet was a part of her. It may as well have melted into her leg, which was what she hoped had happened and _not_ the alternative.

_Think Orihime, think!_ Where had she seen it last? Because it had become such a part of her, she hardly felt it half the time, but she had been vaguely aware of it last night during the first of her escapades. She needed to retrace her steps, starting from the motel. What if she’d left it in the room? What if some thief of a maid had taken it and thanked her good fortune for Orihime’s careless mistake?

She quickly shoveled the rest of the pie into her mouth—leaving it behind, no matter what the emergency, would have been a sin—and tore out of the convenience store, trying not to look worried as she limped down the sidewalk. The motel was two blocks away and already the pain in her ankle was getting to be unbearable. She wished she’d invested in a car. The muggy weather caused sweat to gather at the back of her neck, but at least the stranger’s shirt was big enough to let a slight breeze get at her torso. Maybe she shouldn’t have stolen it, but she hadn’t had time to weigh the consequences.

Upon entering the motel, the clerk at the reception desk stared at her curiously. “Good morning Ms. Inoue. Don’t usually see you here this early.”

“Hey Rob.” Orihime approached him, grateful for a friendly face. “Look, I think I lost something here last night. Did any of the maids find a gold anklet in, uh, room… crap. Whatever the hell room the soldier was staying in!”

He shook his head slowly. “No, my maids are pretty honest. They turn their findings in to me if they do come across such things.”

Orihime swallowed the lump in her throat, fighting her desperation. “Do you think I could take a look?”

Rob sighed, then summoned another receptionist to take his place and went through the customer log, finding the soldier’s name. He grabbed a key off of the hook in the back and walked Orihime down the hall to the room. Once the door was open, she ran inside and searched every corner of the floor, particularly where her clothes had been thrown. Nothing. The beds were neatly dressed, the drawers empty save for a Bible. No sign of the anklet anywhere. She let out an exasperated sigh and ran a hand through her hair. “Thanks anyway, Rob.”

“No problem, Ms. Inoue. I hope you find what you’re looking for,” he said honestly, closing the door once they were out in the hall. Orihime offered him a smile and a kiss on the cheek. He was a nice guy, that Rob. Let her get away with more than he should have.

One place down, so many more to go. Orihime walked down the street with her eyes glued to the pavement. Cracks, gum, bird poop, the occasional coin. No anklet. She retraced her steps to the other two motels, begged her way into the rooms, interrogated housekeepers, but it didn’t turn up. So she made her way back to the Hueco Mundo district, headed for the out-of-place diner she had gone to the night before. Perhaps the anklet had slipped off while she’d been getting hammered.

She was greeted at the door by a short, teenage hostess with a sweet face and black hair pulled up in a bun. “Welcome to the Haineko Diner! Would you like a smoking, non-smoking or bar seat?”

“That won’t be necessary, uh…” Orihime squinted at the girl’s nametag. “Momo. Actually, I was here last night and I lost an anklet. I’m not exactly sure if this is where I lost it or not, but I’m retracing my steps just to be certain.”

  
“Oh! In that case, feel free to look around.” Momo stepped out of her way and gestured towards the bar. “Our manager isn’t in right now, but if you recognize any employees, you can ask them if they found something,” she said.

“Thank you.” Orihime moved past her and began scouring the floor along the bar for any sign of the anklet. She asked two of the bartenders, but while they recognized her and her impressive ability to down so much alcohol, they hadn’t seen anything else. Orihime sighed, knowing what was coming next: she had to check the alley.

Momo gave her an apologetic look when she realized that the anklet hadn’t been found. “I’m really sorry. I can tell that you’re in a hurry, but if our manager were here, she’d give you a free meal or something.”

“Don’t sweat it. It’s nobody’s fault,” Orihime said to her with a weak smile before she walked back out into the August day. She was quickly running out of places to look, which wasn’t good. If she didn’t find the anklet in the alley, she would have to go back to the Las Noches apartment building whether she wanted to or not. Hopefully she would spot it along the way. After all, she’d been taken quite a distance. The anklet could have fallen anywhere.

Orihime stepped into the alley next to the diner and cringed. And she’d thought the smell was bad last night! Now with everything damp from the rain and the air thick with humidity, the stench was so pungent it was practically tangible. She took a deep breath and held it, not wanting to throw up again. She thought back to the night before and followed her stumbling path into the narrow passage, stopping at the spot where she had fallen. No anklet. She looked around, behind dumpsters crawling with maggots and in slime-covered crevices, hoping that the rain had carried it into a dark corner, but there was no sign of it.

Now she was left wondering where to go from there. Which way had last night’s mysterious stranger taken her? Had he come out of the alley the same way that she had gone in, or had he continued through to the other street? If only there was some kind of clue! Footsteps in the mud and grime, a note, or _something_! But who in their right mind would leave a note on a rainy night, especially when they probably thought that she would have stuck around in the morning to listen to how much Jesus loved her?

Orihime felt the desperation clawing its way to the surface again. Tears blurred her vision. She wanted her anklet back. Figures she would lose the only thing of importance that she owned! Phones, purses, clothing, cigarettes, gum… all of it could be replaced, but she could never find a substitute for her brother’s last gift to her.

“Well, what do we have here?”

The male voice caused her to lift her head. Three guys, each of them eyeing a different part of her with obvious interest, were approaching from the end of the alley. Orihime scowled. She didn’t have time for this. “A pretty lady, crying all alone in such a bad part of town?”

“What’s the matter, sweetie? We can make you feel better, I promise.”

Her eyes narrowed as she moved away from them. “Back off. I’m not in the mood for your shit.”

“Ooh, she’s feisty!” The trio laughed wickedly. She started to retreat, but one of them reached out and grabbed her wrist before she could pull away. “Come on, babe. Don’t be like that!”

“Let go!” Orihime snapped, ready to launch a kick to his nuts. But before she could lift her leg, a fist drove into the side of his face. The guy staggered back into his friends, squealing like a stuck pig, blood spurting from his nose. She blinked and looked down at her own fist. That hadn’t been her.

“How dare you hooligans harass a young woman in broad daylight, and next to _my_ establishment! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!” a husky voice snapped from behind Orihime.

“You crazy bitch! You broke my nose!” the bleeding man yelled.

“No shit! Why don’t you run back to your mother and have her take a look at it? And nurse from her while you’re at it, you big baby!” Orihime watched the men leave, then turned back to see who had saved her and immediately found herself staring at a pair of breasts that easily dwarfed her own. “Are you okay, dear?” She looked up a bit further, into the face of the gorgeous owner of the astronomical chest. Strawberry blonde, model-faced with a perfectly placed beauty mark at the corner of her mouth.

“I’m fine,” Orihime said. She put some distance between herself and the woman’s bosom. “Thank you.”

“Hey, I know you!” The woman leaned closer and inspected her face. “Yeah, you’re the girl from the bar last night. I asked if you wanted me to call you a cab, but you shook it off and went on your merry way.” She grinned and stuck out her hand. “Rangiku Matsumoto at your service! I’m the manager of the Haineko Diner.”

“Oh, it’s nice to meet you! My name is Orihime Inoue. Sorry about last night. It was just one of those days.”

“Don’t sweat it, girly. You didn’t puke in my nice new restaurant, so I’ve got no beef with you.” She winked conspiratorially. “Besides, I know what it’s like to have _those_ days. You know, the ones that can _only_ end in getting plastered.”

Orihime smiled. She liked this lady. “Speaking of your diner, I lost my favorite anklet yesterday and I was thinking I might have dropped it in there. You didn’t see it, did you?”

Rangiku’s mouth twisted and her brow furrowed. “Can’t say I did,” she answered. “Is that why you’re in the middle of this disgusting alley?” Orihime nodded. “Geez, I’m sorry.” She patted her shoulder. “I know what it’s like to lose something really important, but don’t worry too much. It’ll turn up.”

“I sure hope so.” Orihime tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. The apartment complex was the only place left to check. Did she even remember which floor she had started off on? It didn’t help that the building was freaking backwards, too. Her hangover had gotten much better, but that didn’t mean she was in the mood to do any complicated thinking. “I should get going. I still have steps to retrace.”

“Don’t let me stop you.” Rangiku slung an arm around her shoulder and walked her out of the alley. “But next time you’re in the Hueco Mundo district, feel free to come by Haineko! I feel partially responsible for this so, as a sign of friendship, I’ll give you anything you want, but only once.”

What was it, Be Nice to Prostitutes Day? “You don’t need to do that.”

“It’s no trouble,” Rangiku insisted, turning towards the diner. “Good luck finding what you’re looking for!”

Orihime thanked her and turned in the opposite direction, her eyes picking out the rather tall, white apartment tower in the distance. _Las Noches_. Her heart started to pound. This morning she had busted out of there like a smooth criminal, and now she was left with no choice but to infiltrate it, still wearing the stolen shirt of her mystery man.


	3. The Pianist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was written ten years ago.

Orihime felt sick. She was tired, the weather was absolutely disgusting, and her ankle hurt like a bitch. Perfect excuses to turn around and go home, to sit on her well-worn sofa with a pack of ice on her bruised limb, daytime soap operas and court shows on the television to keep her entertained. She would have given her kidney for that right now, but there were more important things in life than comfort. She needed that anklet back.

Knowing this, she still found herself standing outside of the Las Noches apartment complex as if her feet had been cemented to the sidewalk. The building looked like it had twelve floors in all, and she began to recall the markings on the elevator buttons: Numbers 1 through 10, a G for the ground floor, a P for the penthouse, and a B for the basement. Orihime closed her eyes. She tried to remember _anything_ from last night that could help her, because in her joy of escaping that morning she had forgotten the floor that she had initially started out on. How very like her to not even glance at the number on the door. Freaking perfect.

And she wasn’t about to ask whoever was at the front desk, either. How embarrassing would that be? _I think I was brought here last night, don’t know by who, and I was too plastered to remember anything. Can you help me?_ Like that would ever happen. She was just going to have to guess and check… if she could ever get herself to move.

“ _Pretty girl standing, outside in the summer heat, choosing her next move.”_

“Oh God, not this again.”

Orihime turned her head and saw an odd pair sitting on a bench nearby, staring right at her: a tall, lanky man with shoulder-length, wavy brown hair who absently stroked his goatee as he scrutinized her; and a thin girl with short blonde hair tinted green, as if she spent all of her time in the swimming pool. To Orihime’s horror, the girl was dressed in attire far too risqué for someone who looked like they were barely out of elementary school. “What?” the man was saying, directing his attention to the girl, who was shaking her head. “I thought it was pretty good for an improvised haiku.”

“A haiku shouldn’t be so obvious, Starrk. _Good_ poetry is filled with illusory details, metaphors and comparisons that one would have to dig deep to decipher, not some random-ass daytime observation,” she replied, then looked back at Orihime. “Don’t mind us,” she said.

“Err, right.” Orihime swore under her breath. She’d forgotten that the point of sneaking back to a place was to remain unseen, and here she’d allowed herself to not only be seen, but _improvised_ about. Trepidation or not, she had to keep moving. She gathered her guts, walked into the shade of the building, and pulled open the lobby’s glass door. There was hardly anybody on the first floor now: a few elderly people getting their mail, and a busy-looking man on a cell phone, running out into the sunny day. At the help desk, a man with silver hair and eyes that were so narrow that they could have been closed gave her a creepy smile. She quickly looked away.

Now then, she had to get to the elevators. Luckily, they were right at the end of the lobby. She made her way over to them. Her heels clacked loudly against the tiled floor, which made her wish she had changed her shoes at least. Damn things, causing such a racket. And they didn’t help her foot pain one bit.

Unfortunately, neither of the two elevators were anywhere near the ground floor and appeared to be dumping people off, being that they were taking their sweet time getting to her. Orihime sighed impatiently. What a freaking day. She was going to treat herself to a bubble bath when she got home.

“Oh, is it Ms. Guest from earlier? _Bonjour!_ ”

“Dear God, kill me now,” Orihime whispered before turning very slowly to smile—more of a grimace, really—at the approaching French-German girl from that morning. Only now the elderly people and the still-smiling attendant—were his eyes even open?—stared at her too. Did the girl _have_ to be so loud?

“You are back so soon!” she said. She grabbed Orihime by the shoulders and kissed both her cheeks enthusiastically.

_Smooch_! “Yeah.” _Smooch!_ “I left something here.” Maybe this chick would be able to help her. “You haven’t seen a gold anklet lying around by any chance, have you?”

The green-eyed girl mashed the elevator button and, to Orihime’s annoyance, the elevator began to descend. Figures it would work for _her_. What was the girl’s name again? Something with an N… Nancy? No, it was much shorter… Nel! That was it. “Anklet?” She crossed her arms, puffed out her cheeks, and turned her gaze skyward. “You are meaning jewelry, _oui_?”

“Uh, _oui_.”

Nel grinned. She had pearly white teeth. “You are in luck!” she said, and for a moment Orihime felt her spirit soar. So she wouldn’t have to go back to the Bible family’s apartment? Thank their God for that! “See, Mr. Nnoitra’s female guests often leave their things, perhaps in haste to get away from him. Mr. Nnoitra is very creepy.” She shivered for emphasis. “Anyway, I find jewelry on floor all the time! Keep it for myself, because obviously they are not coming back for it.” And she barked a laugh that startled an elderly couple nearby. “We will check my stash for anklet!”

Orihime’s excitement burst through. “Thanks!” she breathed, and let out a sigh of relief. Now she felt guilty for thinking unfriendly things about the French girl. She wasn’t that bad, just… boisterous, the complete opposite of herself. The elevator door swung open and the two stepped inside. Nel pressed the number six, humming cheerfully, then gasped, making Orihime jump a few inches into the air.

“What happened to foot?” she asked, pointing to her swollen ankle.

“Oh, this? I tripped last night,” Orihime replied. Now that she got a good look at herself, her knees were a little scratched up too, and the flesh of her palms were tender. At least she could remember that much.

Nel clicked her tongue. “You should be resting, and not wearing boots with high heels! Take off your shoes!”

Was she crazy? Orihime wasn’t going to walk around barefoot in some nasty elevator. There could have been people in the building with foot fungi or other questionable diseases. “I’m fine, really,” she said, and ignored the painful throb that shot through her lower leg. Besides, she wasn’t going to get comfy either. As soon as she had her anklet she was leaving and never coming back. The elevator doors swung open onto the sixth floor, which was actually the fifth. It stretched ahead of them, ending in a window from which bright sunlight entered the building.

Nel led the way to her apartment and produced a key from the small pocket on her striped dress. “Boyfriend is not home right now. I make him go buy groceries,” she said as the lock clicked and she forced the door open. She flipped on the light. It was a modest apartment, really, a bit smaller than the one Orihime had woken up in. From what she could see, there was a cramped kitchen directly to their left, then the living room, and a hallway that must have led off into the bedroom.

Orihime followed Nel through the living room and down the short corridor, where there was a picture or two of the French girl with a blue-haired guy in places around Paris. He did look like the cheating, scumbag sort, with a cocky grin and that douchebag hairstyle. But Orihime decided not to make prejudgments. After all, their business was none of hers.

“In here!” Nel announced. She turned on the bedroom light despite the open window. The queen-sized bed had been left undressed, and to Orihime’s discomfort, there were clothes strewn about the floor. She could easily guess what Nel had been up to last night. While she waited a few feet away from the discarded clothing articles, the green-haired girl went through her drawer and withdrew a large, pink cylindrical case, which upon flipping open divided into several sections of shimmering jewelry. Nel held it out for Orihime to take. “Look away!”

There sure was a ton of stuff in there. Orihime guessed that the creepy Mr. Nnoitra must have had frequent company. Gold, silver, diamonds and emeralds and rubies… and this stuff looked legit, too. She ran her fingers along a string of pearls somewhat enviously. But she quickly snapped out of it and rooted through the jewelry in search of her beloved anklet. Necklaces, bracelets, other anklets, earrings. It wasn’t there. She nearly dropped the container in her despair and frustration. Even the apartment’s resident looter didn’t have it?

Nel bowed her head sadly. “No luck?”

“None,” Orihime muttered, “but thanks anyway.” She handed the jewelry box back to the French girl. Looks like she’d have to seek out her good Christian family after all. “I’m going to have a look around the building, okay?”

Nel nodded and walked her back out to the front door. “Do I have to forget that you were here again?”

Orihime managed to crack a smile. “Sure,” she said, and waved in a half-hearted manner before stepping out into the hallway. As she walked toward the elevator, she recalled looking out the apartment window that morning. She’d counted four floors above the one she had been on. That would mean the penthouse, followed by the first floor, the second floor, and the third floor. So she’d been on the fourth… which in this case, meant the seventh. Damn it, she freaking hated this building.

Thankfully, the elevator was once again empty when it opened for her. She pressed the number four, hoping she had gotten it right, and waited as she was carried the short ride up to the designated floor. When she walked out into the hall, she noticed something familiar: a name messily scrawled on the wall in crayon, at the level a child would stand. She’d seen it earlier when she’d been trying so desperately to escape the building, so she was definitely in the right place. Now it was just a matter of knocking on the right door.

She paused for a moment and tried to think of the amount of apartments she had passed on her way to the elevator. She stopped when heard the faint strains of piano music. How nice, she thought. But then she immediately remembered that there had been a piano in the stranger’s apartment this morning. Her eyes widened and she limped her way towards the sound. She hoped that whoever it was would keep on playing so that she could find them.

In no time, Orihime stood in front of the door from which the piano music appeared to be coming from. She listened as it started, then tapered off after a few measures. Then it started again, back at the beginning, only this time the melody was slightly different and continued a while longer before tapering off again. She hesitated. Should she bother this person, who already sounded like they were having trouble with their music? Of course she should. That was none of her business either. She knocked on the door and waited. The song stopped mid-measure. There came a scraping sound, followed by light footsteps, and then the lock clicked and the door opened a crack.

Orihime blinked in surprise. It was the quiet, green-eyed guy she had bumped into on her way out of the apartment building. _He_ was the one who had brought her there? No, he couldn’t be. There was no recognition on his face, no staring pointedly at the shirt she wore. He just… looked at her. And he was so thin, a little on the pale side, with the kind of face that made her want to reach out and hug him, but she wasn’t sure why. “Umm…” She found her voice faltering, her conviction drained. This guy couldn’t possibly have her anklet. “Sorry for bothering you. I-I think I got the wrong door.” There could be another person on this floor with a piano, right?

With an apologetic smile, she took a step back and turned, deciding that she would try someone else. But she wasn’t two paces from the door when she heard him speak. “You look like you’ve lost something important.”

Orihime looked at him. He watched her expectantly. His expression betrayed nothing. “Yeah, how did you know?” Stupid question. If this _was_ the guy who had brought her home last night, why wouldn’t he know? Then again, maybe he had a roommate, someone who had no problems grabbing prostitutes off the street and stealing their jewelry.

After a moment of silence, he removed his gaze from her. “We have a similar look about us,” he said, staring off into space. Then he blinked once and opened the door a bit wider. “Would you like to come in?”

Orihime’s ankle answered for her. She winced and lifted her leg off the floor as pain shot through it again, bad enough to make her eyes water. Perhaps there was no harm in checking with this guy. After all, he certainly seemed the most normal out of the residents she had encountered so far. “Sure,” she said, and carefully limped back. He moved out of her way as she entered the apartment, trying not to look around too conspicuously.

It was the same place. Tidy, quiet, peaceful. The only difference was that the sofa bed had been tucked away and converted into a plain couch. Orihime drew her arms around herself, feeling completely out of place, like a fat ass elephant in the middle of the room. “What did you lose?” the guy asked her. His voice was soft and soothing and just as much a part of the atmosphere as he was.

“An anklet— _my_ anklet. It was from my brother,” she said. She watched as he walked over to the piano and slid the cover over the keys.

“I see.” He looked at her again with that unnerving green gaze. It was almost as if he looked right through her, as if at any given moment he would begin reciting her life story, or all of her deep, personal fears. But he didn’t. “You’re lucky,” he said almost wistfully, “that you’ve lost something tangible… something that could easily be recognized if one were to just lay eyes on it.”

“I don’t feel very lucky,” Orihime said with a frown, to which he chuckled.

“Of course not,” he agreed. He walked to the counter behind the piano that formed the base of an opening that looked into the kitchen. “No one ever does in such situations. Not until they find what they’re looking for, anyway, do they realize how truly lucky they are.” Orihime continued to watch him, puzzled. There was something sad about him, which must have explained her crazy desire to hug him. “Some people will spend their whole lives searching and never find what they lost,” he murmured. “But not you.” He turned around and, opening his palm, her anklet dropped into view, wrapped loosely around two fingers. “Today’s your lucky day.”

Orihime’s heart leapt for joy. “That’s it!” she breathed, her pain momentarily forgotten as she ran forward and allowed him to place the anklet into her hand. The gold chain looked new in the sunlight coming in from the window, or perhaps it was merely her perception of it, now that she’d almost let it slip away from her. She looped it through her fingers and felt every tiny link in the chain, the indentions in the gold plate made by her engraved name. Then she placed it within the safe confines of her purse “Thank you so much…” And she hesitated, realizing that she didn’t know the guy’s name.

“Ulquiorra,” he filled in for her.

Orihime smiled wide, perhaps the first sincere smile she had mustered up in ages. “You’re a life saver, Ulquiorra.” He looked away sheepishly, which only made the urge to hug him even stronger, especially since he had found her anklet. But she held it in and decided she should leave so she wouldn’t take up anymore of his time. “I should get going. I have to soak this ankle before it gets any worse and the doctors have to amputate.”

“Of course.” He gestured towards the door. “Feel free.”

Orihime headed for the exit, glad that she could put this whole episode behind her now. But as she reached for the doorknob, she stopped and looked back at Ulquiorra, whose shirt she may or may not have been wearing, and caught him staring at the sunlit piano as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. “Out of curiosity,” she said before she could think against it, “you said earlier that we had a similar look about us.”

Ulquiorra glanced at the ceiling, his brow furrowed in concentration. “I did,” he muttered.

“So what did you lose, then?”

He sighed, very quietly, and his eyes met hers, seeming to cross the distance from where he stood to where she waited. “My inspiration.”

“Oh.” And here she’d been thinking it was something she could help him with. Then again, he’d also mentioned tangibility. At least if he’d lost his sanity she could have pointed him in the direction of a decent shrink. “Well, I hope you find it,” she said lamely. She pulled the door open and stepped out into the hallway again, but not without hearing his barely audible reply.

“Me too.”

With the door closed behind her, Orihime found herself feeling a little sad. Inspiration, huh? Nothing she could do about that, unless he needed to get laid and had enough money to pay for her. It just served as a reminder of how little she fit into that world, that quiet and tranquil little apartment high above the slums of her life. These people could worry about things like lost inspiration. She had to worry about where her next meal was coming from. _Looks like it’s time to hit the streets._

…

Orihime would have liked to go right back to work. As far as sex was concerned, she wouldn’t need her ankle much, but by the time she got home she could barely walk. Her apartment manager, an energetic lesbian named Chizuru who had a girlfriend but made it no secret that she wanted Orihime’s body, gladly helped her into her living room. “Want me to get you some ice, my little princess?” she cooed as she lowered the girl onto her sofa.

“Oh, sure, if it isn’t too much trouble.” Orihime slung an arm over her eyes and ignored the endearing term. She needed a nap. Apparently being passed out for hours did nothing for sleepy people. From the kitchen, she heard Chizuru speak.

“Where have you been all day, Hime? I came by earlier because I’d bought some donuts for everyone.”

“God, would you believe it? I lost the anklet Sora gave me during work last night like a total dumb ass.” She groaned. “If I ever come in drunk again, feel free to kick me out, even if I am paying rent. I’m seriously going to try and quit this time.”

“Yikes.” Chizuru returned with a baggie of ice wrapped in a paper towel and set it down on Orihime’s bruised ankle. “Rough night?”

Orihime shook her head. “It was just one of those days where I think too freaking much, get hammered and threaten to kill myself, only to chicken out but somehow end up hurting myself anyway.” She removed her arm from her eyes and looked at Chizuru pitifully. “I’m a real piece of work, huh?” She blew out a sigh that lifted her bangs and tossed them to the side. “Passed out in alley in the _rain_ no less, woke up in a strange apartment and lost my anklet…”

“Whoa, hold on a second!” Chizuru held up a hand. “You woke up in a strange apartment?”

“Yeah, uh, Las Noches, in the Hueco Mundo district. That place and everyone who lives there are crazy, I swear.” They were nice, but eccentric. Not her kind of people.

Chizuru giggled. “You mean that building where the floor numbers are upside-down? I’ve been there once or twice. It’s kind of a dump for how much they charge their tenants,” she said. “Aren’t you glad my prices are fair? Though I’d happily let you stay for free, Hime,” she added in a huskier tone.

“I know you would, Chizuru.” Orihime smiled. “And it’s that same generous hospitality that’s making me dinner tonight, right?”

“Only for a kiss.”

“Hundred bucks.”

“Damn it, Hime, you know I’d never pay for your affection!”

“Then you’re just not getting anything,” she said heartlessly. She felt along the floor until she found the remote control and turned the television on. “Besides, I was kidding. Maybe we can rent a movie or something before I go out to work. What do you say?”

Chizuru smiled. “That sounds great.” She readjusted the ice pack and stood. “Call me if you need anything, okay? I’ll be up here in a jiff.”

Orihime flipped through the channels as Chizuru left. She sighed and settled for a court show. So that was it, then. After such a harrowing yet interesting morning, it was just going to be another boring afternoon until the sun set and she went off in search of customers. She had effectively killed most of the day in search of her anklet, which now hugged her uninjured ankle and glimmered happily in the light. It was almost six. The trek back to her side of the city had taken longer than usual thanks to her need for frequent stops.

Her stomach growled, no longer satisfied by the fat slice of pie she’d bought from Urahara’s shop hours before. Maybe she would order a pizza. She’d leave it to Chizuru to pick whatever movie she watched, as long as it wasn’t another college humor flick. Orihime hated being reminded of what she was missing out on.

Sometimes she wondered what her old friends were up to: Ichigo, Rukia, Uryuu, Chad, Tatsuki. But that was dangerous territory. They had all turned their backs on her years ago. Why the hell should she care what they were doing? They’d probably gone to big universities together, and were probably moving into off-campus apartments this year. Maybe Ichigo and Rukia were banging, or Ichigo and Tatsuki—hell, maybe he was banging both of them. At the same time. And they’d had the nerve to think _she_ was a slut? Bastards. If she was lucky, they’d all made a suicide pact and jumped off a cliff together.

And this was exactly why she had a tendency to get drunk when she was bored. This twisted ankle was going to be her undoing. If she couldn’t get out of the apartment when she wanted to, she was going to drink herself dead, and there was no way she’d do that to poor Chizuru, who loved her regardless of what she did—a true friend, if she’d ever had one.

Orihime closed her eyes. She listened to the couple on the television bicker over who had the right to the car after the divorce, only to have the judge tell them both to shut up. She smiled. After such a strange day, her apartment seemed… stale. More so than usual. She was used to things being mundane, but damn. Unconsciously she hit the volume button on the remote control until the voices on the TV practically yelled in her ear. _Much better_.

She dozed off for a while, then woke up close to an hour later when Chizuru came knocking. “Pizza and beer! The dinner of champions,” she announced. She put the pizza box and six-pack on the coffee table and dragged it over so Orihime wouldn’t have to move. “Don’t worry about the food. You’re buying next time. And as for tonight’s movie we have—drum roll please— _Elizabethtown_!”

“Oh my God, with Orlando Bloom?” Orihime sat up, wide awake. “You know just how to spoil me. Put it in now.”

“Ha! _That’s what she said_.” Chizuru grinned sleazily and ran to put the movie into the DVD player. “You drool over what’s his face all you want. Personally, I think Kirsten Dunst is the real cutie.”

“You would,” Orihime said. She leaned over and grabbed a pizza slice, biting into it and wriggling with delight. “What _is_ this orgasmic mess of grease and cheese?” She looked at the name on the box. “Dominoes? No way. I guess those commercials about their new recipe were no friggin’ joke.”

Chizuru laughed. “Just save some for me, Hime.” She sat down and hit the play button on the DVD remote, though the movie went by mostly ignored as Orihime filled her in on the details of her morning and afternoon. With Chizuru there, at least she didn’t have to worry about drinking too much. She was able to stop after two beers, even though the film was oddly nagging at her conscience.

“Hey,” Chizuru whispered, suddenly serious.

“What?” Orihime looked at her and nibbled on the pizza crust.

“That guy that had your anklet…” She met Orihime’s gaze with a straight face. “What if _he_ had a suicide workout machine rigged with a knife in his bedroom?”

Silence. Then the two burst into hysterics and laughed until their sides hurt.


	4. Her Lucky Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was written ten years ago.

Because Orihime had spent so much time walking on her ankle, it took a week before the swelling finally went down and the pain disappeared altogether. She sighed happily as she twisted it this way and that, tapped her foot lightly to make sure she was back to a hundred percent, then tried out her high heels. No pain! Yes! Now Chizuru would have to let her out of the apartment. Her overly concerned friend had forbidden her from going out more than necessary—at times even guarding the door like a sentry—and since Orihime never took work home, she had basically been on a very boring vacation.

Whoever her first customer of the night was would be lucky to get her in a good mood. She went for a skirt, coupled with a white button-up which she would keep slightly open for whoever wanted to indulge in a little fun, and a pair of knee-high boots that could easily be unzipped and kicked off during playtime. Besides, stooping over to remove them would give her customer a nice view.

Chizuru sighed as she leaned on the doorframe to Orihime’s bedroom, arms crossed, watching her apply lip gloss with a finger. “Your customers are so lucky. They don’t have morals keeping them from ravaging you.”

Orihime laughed. “Don’t sound so bummed. That’s a bad thing, remember?” She puckered her lips and made kissing motions at her reflection. “No such thing as a trustworthy man. They’re scum, all of them.”

“Well, if you ever decide to cross the fence…”

“You’re right down the hall.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t you have a date with your woman tonight?”

“Oh, right! I’m going to be late.” Chizuru ran forward and hugged Orihime tight. “No drinking. Come home before sunrise. If you don’t, I’m calling the police,” she warned her. “I’m not even joking. It’s dangerous out there, Hime.”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Orihime winked. “If anything comes up, I’ll give you a call.”

She left half an hour later with a light jacket over her practically see-through shirt. She bent her knee and felt for the anklet inside her boot. Ever since losing it, Orihime had made sure that she would check for it at least every two hours. Her fingers grasped the gold chain and she smiled, satisfied, before she set off down the street. It was the first day of September—her twenty-first birthday coming up fast—and the weather had adjusted accordingly. After that last heat wave, the coolness of autumn had begun to slink its way into the city. The temperatures had dipped into the lower seventies during the day, but never dropped past fifty at night. Not that Orihime was worried. She’d be getting plenty of exercise.

It was kind of disappointing that she got absolutely nothing out of sex. Everywhere she went she heard women boasting on television or in dirty Cosmo magazines about how fantastic and mind-blowing it all was. Personally, Orihime had never felt a twinge of desire for any of the men she had been with. They’d kiss her, but all she could feel was their saliva coating her face and slinking down her throat. They’d touch her, but her body didn’t respond. It was skin on skin, nothing else, no different than shaking someone’s hand.

She didn’t think much of that, either. Some women were devastated by their inability to have orgasms. Orihime just saw it as another fact of life. There were people born without wisdom teeth, people born double-jointed. She couldn’t orgasm during sex. The end.

Tonight’s excursion was almost on the north side of town. She couldn’t bear the thought of parading herself through suburban shopping centers and past stone-walled, gated communities. Still, even there she could find clients, though they would have to meet her halfway if they wanted any action. Customer number one, who pulled up from a bright neighborhood of seven-bedroom, four-point-five bath houses and politely asked her if she needed a ride “home,” was a lawyer. He had a middle-aged wife and two kids in college. His wife owned three corgis that drove him nuts and were fond of pissing on his ties. If it were up to him, he said as he drove to the cheapest motel his smart phone could direct them to, he would have the little monsters put down.

Orihime giggled and shoved him playfully. “No way! That’s _so mean_!” she squealed in her most high-pitched, airheaded voice. Cretin. Jackass. She hoped he hanged himself on a noose of piss-smelling ties that very night. Maybe she’d tell him she had some incurable disease when he was done with her, just to push him towards it.

He was overweight for a man his age and ethnicity. He would be sweating before she got her top off. His chest was probably covered in a disgusting, thick, graying forest of hair, and down under wasn’t going to be any better. He’d have a decent size on him, but it would be crooked or have a weird mole or something. And he’d more than likely wear his wedding ring out of some twisted spite for his unsuspecting wife and her adorable dogs, who Orihime had seen a picture of in the glove compartment when she’d taken a peek under the pretense of looking for some chewing gum.

But Orihime smiled when she needed to smile, stripped slowly enough to tease him, moved the way he wanted her to and politely ignored all the sweat. It was nothing personal. She needed the money. If his wife knew what was going on, she would probably call her a homewrecker. Poor woman. Sometimes Orihime wished that she could gather all those innocent wives into a room and explain to them that if they wanted to see a homewrecker they should look at their husbands first. After all, _they_ were the ones who came onto _her_.

It shouldn’t have been so frustrating. Orihime hated thinking about it for that very reason. If she, with her lack of a high school degree or even a GED for that matter, could understand that the world and its men and their meaningless commitments were going to shit, then so could these pretty and educated housewives. She hated them for being so weak, so utterly stupid. Why blame her when they could pack their things and leave if they were unhappy? Wasn’t this America, the land of the free? 

One client down, and she was already irritated. Orihime didn’t even spare the lawyer a look when he left her back in the city, her patience a bit thinner and her wallet a bit fatter. She’d almost forgotten to fake an orgasm on him. Too bad Chizuru had forbidden her from drinking.

Customer number two was on the local university’s football team. He asked if she’d seen him on ESPN before. She twisted a lock of her hair around her finger and flirtatiously mistook him for the quarterback. No, she hadn’t seen his stupid face on TV. Oh, yeah, she was _all_ about the school. Go… whatever colors they were! She gave an enthusiastic cheer and laughed, pretended to be embarrassed, batted her eyelashes at him. He told her he’d been referred by a friend. What did he expect, a discount? She may have been open all night but she wasn’t a damn convenience store.

It was a quick hook-up in the dark alley next to the sports bar, straight to the point. Orihime stared up at the night sky, clutched the back of his shirt, moaned when appropriate. _I wonder if all the girls who swoon over his picture on their television screen know how tiny he is. Geez, I could have stayed home and played with myself if I wanted a better_ _—_

“Oww!” she screamed, and shoved him away from her neck. “What the fuck was that? Did you just _bite_ me?”

Mr. Football Player grinned. “I thought you girls were into that sort of kinky thing.”

Ugh! Orihime smothered her temper and apologized in a sultry tone. He’d just caught her by surprise, that was all. The moron hadn’t even stopped humping her. _College guys_. She wondered if Kurosaki had that sort of stamina. He’d always seemed like the type who would finish early. The thought had her biting her lower lip to suppress a giggle. How long had it been now, ten minutes? Her moans should have been louder a while ago. Damn, she was too distracted for this.

Her client was the kind of guy who misunderstood women, perhaps due to the fact that he was in college and watched those movies Chizuru was into because they were filled with girls who flashed their boobs to anyone with eyes. She knew this the moment he announced his orgasm, like she really wanted to know. He wore a condom. No need for warnings. She rolled her eyes and tried not to see what his face looked like when he reached nirvana. Orihime had always had this sick desire to be a photographer who took pictures of nothing but the ridiculous expressions guys made when they unloaded. She’d seen so many. There were lip-biters, screamers, grunters, the quiet guys who did nothing but sigh, the red-faced, the goofy smiles, and—her absolute favorite—the guys who groaned and cursed in sequences as if they had just stubbed their toe. They always made her laugh. Really, dude? Was it that bad?

Two clients down, and Orihime now had enough money for a new outfit. Where to next? She didn’t have many regulars, probably because she always dropped her ditzy act the moment their transaction was finished. Most guys were turned off by the transformation. Here she’d been playing the innocent first-timer, giving them the “I’m so nervous” speech and pretending she cared whether or not they were gentle, which they promised to be but never were. If you pet a puppy that hard, you’d kill the poor thing.

Orihime wandered into a local park. She wished she could get her head out of the clouds. She withdrew a cigarette from the pack in her purse, lit it, and took a good drag before checking to make sure her anklet was still there. Yup, safe and sound. She unzipped her boot, pulled her leg free and slipped the anklet off, holding it up for inspection. It glowed faintly in the light of a nearby streetlamp, but her name was shadowed on the engraved plate, illegible.

How sad, she thought, that it didn’t shine as brightly as it had the other day at Las Noches.

Whoa, hold the phone! Where was _that_ thought train taking her? Had she already forgotten the whackos she’d had to go through to get this anklet back? There was nothing fond about that memory. Nothing at all. She’d just been relieved to see her anklet. That had to have been the only reason that the gold chain had seemed like new, like the day her brother had presented it to her.

_“Happy birthday, Orihime!”_

_“Sora, it’s beautiful! You didn’t have to get me anything. You know we don’t have that much money!”_

Orihime stared at the anklet, which had become harder to see behind the unshed tears in her eyes.

_“I know, but it’s your birthday. I wanted to do something special for you, the greatest”_ —she sniffled— _“most wonderful”_ _—_ her heart tightened painfully— _“sweetest little sister anyone could ever ask for.”_ Orihime choked back a sob. Oh, Sora. Had they told him, when he got to heaven, what she had done that very night with the guys from the tennis team? Happy birthday to them.

Why was she always, _always_ thinking so much? Didn’t her brain have an off switch somewhere? Oh, right. It was at the bottom of a beer bottle. She wiped the tears from her cheeks. How wonderful. She’d become an alcoholic, just like her filthy father. She could have tried a little harder not to end up being what she was now: a clone of the parents she’d hated with every fiber of her being. But what would she have been, then? A functioning member of society? The thought was almost laughable. She couldn’t picture herself sitting in an office taking phone calls for a handsome CEO who would eventually sweep her off her feet. She couldn’t see herself teaching a kindergarten class and charming one of her student’s single fathers. She couldn’t put herself in a kitchen washing dishes with a big pregnant belly, waiting for her beloved, honest husband to come home.

That life wasn’t for _her_. It never had been, it never would be. She was born in the bathtub of a rundown apartment and would probably die the same way. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, trash to miserable, stinking trash.

Orihime lifelessly felt around for her purse. She clutched the anklet in her left hand while she fumbled for her phone with the right. She pressed number one on her speed dial and lifted the phone to her ear. The answering machine picked up. “Hey, Chizuru, it’s Hime. I’m going to get drunk,” she muttered, then hung up and slipped her foot back into her boot. Beer now, quitting later, to hell with the consequences. Anything was better than this.

…

Tonight’s bar boasted that it was a favorite stop for the lovely ladies of Girls Gone Wild. Apparently they were under the sad impression that Orihime would be inspired by the fact and go topless for a while. Boy, were they wrong. “I said _no!”_ she snapped, and decked a tipsy guy who had tried to yank off her sweater without warning. Just because she was halfway to the moon didn’t mean she couldn’t defend herself. The guy fell back and took a bar stool with him on his way to the sticky floor. Orihime stood on wobbly legs with her fist still clenched in case anybody else wanted some.

“Uh, Miss?” the bartender called out tentatively.

“ _What?_ ” she barked at him. Her head whipped in his direction and the room spun. Oh, right. They didn’t like it when people laid out their customers, even if the guy had been sexually harassing her. She snorted and grabbed her purse off the bar, leaving behind enough money to pay for the drinks she’d downed. God, how many had that been? She’d lost count after her fourth, and that had been an hour ago. She should have been unconscious by now.

Orihime stumbled out into the night and walked purposefully towards… nowhere in particular. She couldn’t go home like this. Chizuru would ignore her orders to kick her out, give her a lecture that she wasn’t in the mood to hear, then throw all of her booze in the trash. Wait, she’d probably already done that after the message Orihime had left her.

Stupid Sora. She’d only been a social drinker before he’d died. But what was the first thing she’d done after his funeral? Persuaded some college guy to buy her a case of beer in exchange for quickie, then she’d gone home and drank herself into a stupor.

But that didn’t _work_ anymore. She could no longer numb herself like she used to. Five bottles, seven bottles, twelve bottles—nothing helped.

And all of these people—all of these happy, smiling people—who looked down at her as she bumped into them, lurched forward, reached out desperately for something she couldn’t see, something she couldn’t define. All of these blind, stupid, judgmental people. What right did they have to look at her with such disdain, or even worse, pity? She didn’t want their charity. They couldn’t do anything for her. She was lost in the crowd again, one in a sea of billions, being swept away by the current, drowning.

“ _Damn it!_ ” she screamed, as loud as she could. Several people turned to stare. So they had heard her after all. The deafening roar of the sea was all in her head, right? She had to get away from them. Someone was bound to call the police on her public intoxication. “Damn it,” she muttered again, and clutched her jacket close to her neck as she ran into an alley.

_“Where will you go, Miss Inoue?”_ She remembered her principal asking her that the day she’d been expelled. Back then, she’d had no idea. She still didn’t.

Things had been so much better when Sora was around. He’d made life tolerable, even a little nice. At least he’d tried. He’d encouraged her to talk to a counselor after their parents had died and he’d been left with custody of her, and even though she had refused, it was nice to know that he’d cared enough to suggest it.

Nobody cared now. Chizuru was bound to be tired of her shenanigans, and she was about the only trustworthy person in Orihime’s life. Figures she’d screwed that up, too. Orihime stopped running, out of breath. Her stomach threatened to heave out every ounce of alcohol she’d consumed. Bring it on, stomach. She couldn’t possibly get any lower than this.

So she could only go up, right? Up! That was the solution. That’s where she would go. She half-sobbed, half-laughed, and looked around until she found her prize: a fire escape. She grabbed hold of the rickety stairs and hoisted herself onto them.

Up. She had to keep climbing until she reached the top. From there she would definitely know what to do. The thin heels on her boots got stuck in the fire escape’s holes, but she yanked them out and kept going. She climbed three flights of stairs, then gracelessly swung her leg over the side of the brick building’s roof and pulled herself up with a decent amount of effort.

“Woo!” she cheered with a gesture of triumph. She staggered a few steps forward. Boy, was she ever proud of herself. All those years without PE and she’d still managed to scale a building. How awesome was _she_? She would have bet a whole ten bucks that Wonder Woman couldn’t have scaled that building better. A lopsided smile spread across her face as she walked across the roof, her gait unsteady and her vision mass-producing the fuzzy lights that seemed to be dancing everywhere. She stopped just shy of the edge and stared down at the crowd below.

Yes, that’s right. She was above them now. She was the one who looked down on their pitiful heads, on their perfect little lives.

But they all moved forward, oblivious to the young woman on the roof above them. Unfairly, blissfully unaware when she was so aware of them. Those people were happy, or at least content. What in the world did they need to glare up at her for? They were happy, so they could choose to ignore the people who looked down on them. They were happy, and they had every right to flaunt it. They had earned it.

The smile dropped from Orihime’s face. Tears followed shortly after. Her bottom lip trembled, and a cold wind blew off the building, chilling her exposed legs. They didn’t have to look at her, she knew, but she wanted them to. _Please, please… somebody notice me_. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to take a running leap off the ledge. Surely they would have to notice her when she landed head first and went splat on the pavement in front of them. _Somebody… anybody, please…._ But they kept right on walking, towards their futures, whereas she was about to end hers.

_Move_ , she told her feet, but they refused. _Move_. Nothing happened. A frustrated sob wracked her body. Why was she so afraid? She had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. The only man who had ever cared about her, but had abandoned her anyway, was on the other side of that leap. She would have a lot of explaining to do, but she was ready, wasn’t she?

Orihime backed away from the ledge. No, she wasn’t. She couldn’t show up in front of Sora like this. He didn’t deserve that. This wasn’t his great and wonderful and sweet little sister. The girl on the roof was a whore like her mother, a drunk like her father, a body that sustained itself to spite the miserable world it inhabited. That’s all she was, all she ever would be. And she knew this, but her stupid heart still stubbornly clung to the hope that she could be something _more_.

Orihime collapsed onto the roof and wept bitterly, cried for more than she was worth. She cried until she’d thrown up the contents of her stomach, until she was sure there were no more tears left in her body. She was probably dehydrated. Her throat raw, her sides aching, her muscles weak, eyes swollen, head throbbing. Everything _hurt._ Her body, her heart, her soul. She was so painfully alone. On top of the world with no one at her side, nothing to show for it.

And because she had cried so much, she finally allowed herself to think without fear of bursting into tears again. She couldn’t possibly muster up the strength. Her earliest memories: of standing behind the door, wondering what that strange man was doing on top of mommy, and her mother’s expressionless face as she lay there. Her father whispering words she didn’t understand until much later as he did to her what that man had done to her mother. Oh, but it hurt so much. How could mommy just lay there so quietly when it hurt _so much_? And it was uncomfortable, and there was something warm inside of her and she wanted it out. She took a shower. Sora was crying, bleeding. He’d tried to stop it, but he couldn’t. And those words—those awful, damning words.

Orihime picked herself up off of the roof and made her way back to the fire escape. She saw nothing but her memories playing out like a film on screen. The teacher, his twisted smile, his false promises and the way he had redressed her and sent her on her way so casually. And the boys… all of those boys, too many to count, their faces blurred into a shapeless form. All she could see was the money in their outstretched hand. Her friends, how they’d recoiled from her in disgust when they had learned the horrible truth.

She wandered through the city, no longer worried about whether or not the people saw her, past the pointing of caring what they thought. Where would she go?

Sora. Her brother, her caretaker, her best friend. She’d lied to him. He didn’t deserve it, but she had. She remembered everything about him so clearly. How he had stood with his back straight, his expression as cold as stone as their father’s casket was lowered into the ground. She remembered Sora’s smile, how much it had changed when they had been set free from that oppressive home. All the times he had made her laugh, and all the times he had comforted her when she’d cried.

Orihime hadn’t cried in front of anyone in years. Her brother’s shoulder had been the only one she could rely on, and knowing this, he had left her anyway. No, that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t his fault he’d gotten sick, that they couldn’t afford the medical procedure that could have saved him, or at least given him a little while longer.

Happy memories, the few that she had, of those years that she had been with him, safe, taken care of. Days when she’d had animated and cheerful friends like that crazy French girl, friends that would stick up for her like that pretty blonde from the diner in Hueco Mundo. Friends that she could count on, like Chizuru. The days before she had hated everything, when there was still joy to be found in the world, even in something as simple as an anklet on her birthday.

The anklet, which had been so beautiful when Sora had given it to her, shimmering in the sun as she held it to the light to be admired. Such a precious thing, and she’d almost lost that, too. She’d lost so much—things that she had probably been searching her entire life for, but would never again find. Intangible things, like her innocence; and tangible things, like her friends. Like Sora’s final gift to her, so bright in that ethereal sun, shining and wonderful and perfect in Ulquiorra’s outstretched hand.

It must have been close to two in the morning, and once again she found herself with no idea as to how she’d gotten there. But she knocked and she knocked until a beam of orange light came on at her feet, the lock clicked open, and a moment later she stared into his wide green eyes, surely a pitiful sight and smelling absolutely horrible.

“C-Can I stay with you?” Her voice was small, timid, terrified. This wasn’t Orihime, the prostitute. She was someone else. Not sure who, but hopefully, someone better.

Ulquiorra took a step back and held the door open for her as she came inside.


	5. Conditions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was written ten years ago.

“No, wait… no, Chizuru, listen! It won’t be necessary. No, I’m not in any kind of trouble. Look, can you please just—no! I didn’t mess around with gangsters _or_ mobsters. Trust me, I’m fine. Will you pay attention?” Orihime snapped into her cell phone. She rubbed her temples. Chizuru had been talking a mile a minute since she had picked up, in that high pitched tone that suggested she was close to tears, and nothing that Orihime had said to her had seemed to penetrate her skull yet. “Calm down and listen, _please_. Take a deep breath. In, out. Again: in, and let it out. Are you calm now? Are you going to let me talk?” A whimpering yes. “I just needed to get out of the apartment for a while. I’m not in any kind of trouble so don’t go running to the police, for the love of pie. And to prove that I’m a-ok, I’ll keep paying the rent on the place.”

“ _What? How long do you plan on being gone?”_ Chizuru yelled loud enough for Orihime to pull the phone away from her ear. She waited a moment to make sure there would be no more outbursts, then responded.

“I don’t know.” Her fingers picked at the plain, tan bandaid on her hand. “But don’t worry, okay?”

A sigh. “ _Can I at least know where you are, Hime?_ ”

She smiled wryly. “Rehab.”

Orihime gave her last reassurances and ended the call, then flipped her phone closed and looked around Ulquiorra’s living room. The shades were drawn, thankfully, but other than that it was the very same as the first time she’d woken up there. When she’d come to that morning she had found a cold glass of water and pain killers on a napkin next to the sofa bed. After staring at the pretty, clear glass for a moment, she had taken a careful sip of the water and found that it was delicious, with a taste like fresh air. She’d always thought those “straight from the mountain spring” TV commercials were a load of crap, but this glass had proven her wrong.

The night before had gone by in a blur, but she could remember bits and pieces of it. She’d been told that she didn’t look too good shortly before she had passed out the first time. Then, upon recovering a little bit of consciousness, she had felt a needle prick her skin.

_“Look, consent or no consent, if she doesn’t get fluids she’s going to die. We can worry about the details later.”_

_“Are you sure?”_

_“Trust me, I’m a doctor!”_

_“Really? Because I’ve been hearing some rumors that…”_

_“Shh! Do you want to wake her up?”_ Someone had pried her eyelids apart then, and a bright light flashed in them and obstructed her view. Orihime would have complained, but she faded again for what she guessed was a few hours. When she’d come to, she had lifted her hand to see what had pricked her, but all she’d found was a bandaid. At that time she’d heard someone moving around down the hall and had tried to seek out her purse, wanting to check the time on her phone, but she fell asleep with her arm hanging off of the bed. Thirty minutes earlier, she’d woken up to find her arm tucked under the blankets.

Ulquiorra, however, was not home. It kind of surprised Orihime, being that it wasn’t even ten. Then again, most normal people had normal jobs and worked eight hour shifts from morning until afternoon.

She pulled the sheets off her legs and wrapped them around her body, then picked up the empty glass of water and the wet napkin on which it sat. She was going to explore, she decided as she slung her legs over the side of the sofa bed. This place was too quiet and clean to _not_ be hiding some dirty little secret.

Orihime tip-toed across the living room, though she wasn’t sure why. Reflex, maybe? Or perhaps she didn’t want to disturb the peace that blanketed the apartment, which made it seem more like a still-life painting than someone’s home. She walked into the kitchen and placed the empty glass in the sink, then stared at it a bit guiltily. There were no other dishes lying around. She sighed, reached for the tap and paused, confused by the bulbous attachment on the faucet. “What is…?” She grasped the small handle on the strange contraption and jiggled it back and forth. Nothing happened. “Huh.” Giving up on that, she turned on the water and rinsed out the glass with a tiny drop of soap. The label said that it was extra concentrated, so she tried to be careful about not using too much. Last thing she needed was to cause a bubble bath in the sink.

Once the glass was dried, she wondered which of the cupboards it went in. There was a wooden mug-holder beside a coffeemaker to her left, but it was full. Orihime examined the ceramic cups. Seattle, Washington. Tacoma, Washington. Portland, Oregon. Sacramento, California. New York, New York. Paris, France. And then, completely out of place, a Batman mug.

So he was well-traveled and had a bit of a nerd streak in him. Not too bad, unless she found a comic book shrine in his bedroom or something.

Orihime pulled open the cupboards to the right of the sink and found nothing but an assortment of plates and bowls stacked according to size. She tried the one on the left. Jackpot! There were the glasses. She hadn’t expected him to have so many, considering that it looked like he lived alone. She replaced her glass, closed the cupboard and turned, trying to decide where she wanted to explore next. The refrigerator began to hum. Well, that settled things!

She drew the blankets a little closer to her body and opened the refrigerator. It was well stocked: milk, eggs, bread, veggies, miscellaneous fruit, sliced cheese, sliced ham and turkey, a half-eaten chocolate bar… normal groceries, from the looks of it. She cautiously examined the drawers for any signs of human body parts, but the only head she found was one of lettuce. How boring. Here she’d been hoping to have stumbled onto some kind of cannibalistic conspiracy that she could report to the police and get some insane amount of reward money for. Then again, when those things happened in horror movies, the heroine usually found the crazed killer standing right behind her, poised to strike, ensuing in a fight to the death that she was way too hungover to deal with right now.

The other drawers and cupboards consisted of canned food products and cookware. The only abnormal thing about that was the fact that he was a bachelor, and the most kitchen skills they tended to have were microwave proficiency and mastery of a can opener.

Orihime left the kitchen in favor of the small closet right next to it. There was nothing inside. She grabbed the string dangling in front of her face and clicked on the light, but surely enough, the closet was empty. Shouldn’t there have been coats, or shoes, or an umbrella? She frowned, clicked the light off, and closed the door. What now? She walked back into the living room and stood between the sofa bed and the table, looking around.

A television, a DVD player… what kind of movies did Ulquiorra like? She wedged herself into the space at the foot of the sofa bed and grasped the handle of the console’s little door. But there were no movies there. The space was crammed with CDs, stacked alphabetically. She had just leaned in closer to inspect the titles when she heard a key being inserted into the door. She shut the console cabinet and scrambled back onto the sofa bed and messed her hair up a bit to make it look like she’d been asleep.

Ulquiorra walked in as quietly as possible, then noticed that Orihime was awake. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” Orihime put on her best smile, the kind that often appealed to the customers with larger salaries. She wondered if she had made it in time to give off the impression that she _hadn’t_ been snooping around in his things. Her eyes followed him as he walked over to the dining table and set down a sizable stack of papers crammed into two or three file folders. His attire was far too casual for an office building: jeans, a short-sleeved black shirt and a light jacket with worn sneakers. What did he do? Maybe those documents could give her some kind of clue.

“Are you feeling better?” Ulquiorra asked. He looked at her over his shoulder. “You were in quite a state last night.”

Orihime ran a hand through her hair. “Oh, yeah, I’m fine.” She had to channel her inner nice girl now that she was sober and questioning her reasons for coming _here_ of all places. This guy was a total stranger. Why had her drunken, emotional wreck of a self hauled her pathetic ass all the way to the Hueco Mundo district? It had made perfect sense last night. Of course, lots of stupid things made sense when she was hammered.

Ulquiorra nodded with satisfaction and withdrew a pen from his back pocket. He flipped open the first of the file folders and, after some quiet mumbling, wrote something down. “Are you hungry?” Orihime’s stomach responded with a loud growl. She frowned at it. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Ulquiorra gave her a playful quirk of a smile. “Come to lunch with me?”

A lunch invitation? Orihime gestured towards the folders. “Don’t you have some kind of job to get to?”

“Today, not until two. There’s plenty of time,” he told her. She didn’t respond, and eyed her attire somewhat worriedly. “Do you need to borrow something?” Then, to her utter embarrassment he added, “A shirt, perhaps?”

Right. His shirt. She bowed her head sheepishly, and his smile lengthened a tiny bit, amusement in his green eyes. “Heh, I’m kidding. I know just the thing.” And without another word, he left a confused Orihime alone in his apartment. She sighed and flopped over onto the sofa bed, the springs creaking a few times as it settled. How long was she going to stay here, anyway? Ulquiorra may have been hospitable, but he wasn’t crazy. At least, she didn’t think he was. What sane person would let a prostitute stay in their house?

Never mind. She could think of a few. Her eyes narrowed and her lips pulled down into a frown. So those were his motives, huh? Eh, she could live with that. It bothered her, but it wasn’t anything new. Men were all the same.

Besides, it would only be until she got over this weird funk she’d entered into lately. That shouldn’t take more than a few days, right?

Ulquiorra returned a couple of minutes later with a garment bag slung over his arm. “Don’t panic,” he said, “they’re regular clothes, but the person I borrowed them from is very nit-picky about the pristine condition of her attire.” He held the bag out to Orihime. “That and she was the only tenant I could think of with, umm, proportions relatively close to yours.” He pointed down the hall. “Bathroom’s that way.”

“Thanks.” Orihime took the bag, laid it out on the sofa bed, and unzipped it. Surely enough, the clothes inside were nothing more than a blouse and a pair of jeans. She withdrew them and made her way down the small corridor, taking the opportunity to snoop a little more. A small, half-open closet revealed shelves stocked with towels and sheets. The bathroom door was just before it, and a few feet away stood the bedroom door. As tempted as she was to look inside, she didn’t want Ulquiorra sneaking up on her and getting the wrong idea.

Orihime entered the bathroom and locked herself in. From the modest, impersonal decorations she guessed that this one was for guests. She wriggled out of her “work clothes” and tried on the borrowed blouse first. True to Ulquiorra’s words, it fit her chest like a glove. The jeans were a little long, but nothing that cuffing couldn’t fix. Besides, her boots would swallow them anyway.

When she stepped out into the hall, she almost bumped into Ulquiorra, who had just emerged from his bedroom. “Ah, it suits you,” he said with the same faint smile as before. “Shall we?”  
  


…

Ulquiorra’s car could best be compared to the kid who always got picked last for kickball: scrawny and rather pathetic alongside the other cars on the road. It, too, lacked any personal decorations. When Orihime pulled down the visor to block out the harsh daytime sunlight, she noticed a faded treble clef sticker, but that was all.

He took her to a Chinese restaurant just outside of the Hueco Mundo district. Orihime usually skipped breakfast so her stomach didn’t mind the heavy load of food. She had put away half a bowl of chicken fried rice before she’d caught his eye. Judging by the amused look on his face, he hadn’t expected her to sport such an impressive appetite. She felt her cheeks heat up and attempted to slow down.

What now? Here they were, sitting across from each other, having lunch like friends did, but he had yet to ask her why she’d come to his apartment and she had yet to figure out what to say. What if he told her she had to leave? She’d informed Chizuru that she would be gone for a while. Where would she go from there? Maybe she could hitchhike on a train like the impoverished of the twenties, California bound. Perhaps she would be discovered by a Hollywood producer who would transform her into the next big thing.

She frowned. The paparazzi wouldn’t let her rest the moment they dug up her dirty past.

“Ms. Inoue.” She looked up, eyes wide. Here it came. “I want to apologize. You see, last night, I had to call over one of my neighbors—he’s a doctor, we think—to evaluate your health after you fainted. He had to give you fluids through an IV, hence the bandaid. We couldn’t exactly wait for your consent, so…”

Orihime glanced at her hand. “Oh, that’s fine. If it was for the sake of my health…”

“Right.” Ulquiorra relaxed and went back to his lunch, dipping an eggroll into the small dish of soy sauce the waitress had placed between them. That was it? Seriously? Against her better judgment, Orihime decided that if he wasn’t going to address the situation, she would.

“Look, about all this, I’m really sorry. Honestly, I don’t even know why I came to your apartment,” she confessed. She chewed her lower lip as she waited for his reply.

Ulquiorra, quite unbothered, reached for the plastic-wrapped fortune cookie on the table. He gave it a twist, withdrew the cookie and placed it onto his palm. “Well,” he began, his eyes on the cookie, “you were drunk.” She nodded once. “In your intoxicated state, you decided to come to me, which means you were under the impression that you had nowhere else to go. What this tells _me_ ”—he snapped the cookie in half—“is that someone you care about does not approve of your drinking.”

Orihime’s eyes widened and she leaned forward across the table. “You’re not psychic or something, are you?” she whispered.

“No.” Ulquiorra stared at her as if questioning whether or not she was serious. “My friends call me perceptive.”

“That’s a funny nickname,” she joked to lighten the mood. He smiled.

“Look, if you need a place to escape to for a while, you’re more than welcome to stay with me. Really, it’s no trouble at all.” Orihime’s mouth dropped open, but her surprise went unnoticed. Ulquiorra’s green eyes scanned the fortune, which he placed face down on the table. “I think I would prefer having _you_ there over any of my insane neighbors. Besides”—he dropped the cookie into the bowl—“you need some time away from life, I’m guessing, and I need a change of pace.”

Orihime had yet to close her mouth. “You _do_ know that I’m a prostitute, right?”

“I was getting to that.” Ulquiorra pointed a wooden chopstick at her. “According to popular opinion in Las Noches, I’m fairly easy to get along with. However, I do have my conditions.” He angled the stick and tapped the table surface. “First, you are going to get a normal job.”

“A nor—!” Orihime stopped. Her voice had taken on a higher note. “A _normal job_? Minimum wage? Paying taxes? _Paperwork_?”

Ulquiorra shrugged. “It’s whatever you decide. My home is not a brothel. If you are going to live there, you will do so as Orihime Inoue, an honest and hardworking young woman.”

She _was_ honest and hardworking! She had half a mind to tell him that he looked like he could use a few days in the sun and a year or two in the gym, because if they ever got into a brawl she would knock his skinny ass out in seconds. But she bit her tongue, took a deep breath, and fought the urge to insult. This was her chance to become a better person, and he was giving it to her for free. “What are your other conditions?”

Ulquiorra leaned back and searched his pocket a moment, then threw something onto the table between them. Were those _her cigarettes_? She looked at him, then grabbed her purse and shoved it open. Phone, wallet, chewing gum, makeup… but no cigarettes. She made a grab for them. Ulquiorra stopped her with a surprisingly quick stab to the hand with the chopstick he held. “No smoking,” he said. “That’s condition number two.”

Orihime’s mouth opened and closed aquarium fish-style. It wasn’t like she smoked often, but they were a quick substitute to her drinking, which she swore she was going to quit this time. “But…”

Ulquiorra used the chopstick to maneuver the box back to his side of the table. “Hmm. I really don’t _have_ to let you stay,” he said in a bored tone. He passed the cigarettes back and forth with small taps. “Though the homeless shelters around here fill up pretty quickly.” His gaze turned skyward. “The churches are always open, but you seem like the type who’s gotten the forgiveness speech a couple hundred times.”

Orihime’s eyes narrowed. She could picture herself grabbing a fistful of his hair and slamming his head into the bowl in front of him. “Anything else?” she asked between clenched teeth.

“Sure.” Ulquiorra looked back at her. “I don’t care that you drink, but I would rather not see it in my apartment. If you’re going out, that’s fine.”

“Well, you won’t have to worry about that one. I’m through with alcohol,” Orihime declared. She picked up the fortune he had set on the table. _Nothing will stand in the way of your success this week_. Sounded nice, and yet he’d cast it aside without much thought. She decided to take it as a reminder of what she had set out to do: kick the booze. No more getting plastered when she felt anything less than okay. The cigarettes might have been a problem, though. “Anymore conditions?”

Ulquiorra shook his head. “I’m not all that demanding.”

Orihime frowned. She wasn’t going to take him so lightly just because he had the face of a child lost at the mall. He’d already proven that beneath that innocent, victimized exterior laid a quick-witted manipulator. Which reminded her… “So I take it by the fact that you’re not charging me for rent, you want me to pay by _other_ means.”

“Pardon?”

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to beat around the bush.”

Ulquiorra’s thoughts could be seen marching across his face as he divined what she was talking about. He refocused on her after a few seconds. “You’ve misunderstood. All I ask in exchange for my hospitality is that my rules be respected, _nothing more_ ,” he said. “Really.”

Orihime wanted to call him out on a lie, but she couldn’t find a single trace of dishonesty in his expression. Slight anxiety, maybe, but she wouldn’t believe him just yet. He’d be feeling her up in no time.

…

Ulquiorra came up to the apartment with her, but he didn’t stay long. After taking the mysterious stack of folders from before into his bedroom, he emerged with another under his arm and glanced at his watch with a small sigh. “I’ll be going now. If you want to watch something, I have about six hundred useless TV channels. Oh, and movies too. They’re in the side shelves.”

“Sure.” Orihime watched him cross to the front door. “Though I might step out myself,” she added. After all, she needed to find a job. But who in their right mind would hire her without a high school degree or any form of higher education? She wouldn’t be caught dead flipping hamburgers, especially for men who she might have slept with in the past. What options did that leave her? None. This was going to be harder than she thought.

“Ah, well, I’ll be here when you get back so you don’t have to worry about getting locked out,” Ulquiorra promised, then stepped out of the apartment.

Orihime waited a full two minutes before she sprung from the sofa and ran to his bedroom with a mischievous giggle. She was just going to take a quick look to see what kind of person she was living with, that was all! Her mind had already conjured up a number of possible looks for his room: all-white furniture, or maybe a coffin—being a vampire would explain his pale skin—in the middle of torchlit darkness, or even better, a replica of the Bat Cave.

But when she nudged the door open enough to peer inside, she found a normal room. A queen sized bed, made. Forest green curtains pulled back to let in sunlight. A laptop computer, closed, sitting on top of a black desk. A short bookcase filled with a combination of thick volumes and spiral-bound notebooks. A dust-covered high school diploma.

There! Orihime tip-toed into the room towards the stack of fifteen or so folders in a bin next to the desk. She picked one up, careful not to disturb its contents lest her snooping be discovered. It had a name on it, and inside, a printed checklist with notes written in a neat scrawl, and after that came a sizable quantity of sheet music, all for the piano. She flipped open the cover on the next folder. It was the same, only the checklist and music were different.

She replaced the folder and crossed her arms. So he was a piano teacher. Nothing odd about that. She wondered what sort of people he taught. Children? Adults? Beginners or advanced? Back when her parents were still alive, she had taken lessons for a whole five weeks before her father withdrew her, claiming it was a waste of money.

Orihime left the room, made sure the door was in the position she had found it in, and stood thinking in the hallway. Well, it was time to begin her job hunt. She stared at her knee high boots in dismay and wished she had brought along a pair of flip-flops. Would Ulquiorra mind if she retrieved some of her things from home? At least some of her own clothes, though she appreciated the kindness of whoever had loaned her these tall jeans.

She touched up her makeup a bit in the bathroom before she stepped out of the apartment. Her mental map of the Hueco Mundo district highlighted potential hiring places. Without a car, she couldn’t really look anywhere else. Bus fare cost money that she could no longer spend without making back in one night.

The elevator opened with a ding, but it wasn’t empty. A tall, pink-haired man with glasses and jeans that were tighter than any she’d ever owned stood inside. He had been glancing down at a notebook in his hand, ready to step off of the elevator, but when he saw Orihime he froze. “Oh! Just the person I was coming to see,” he said. He snapped the notebook shut. The elevator doors started to close and he held down a button to keep them open. “Come along. You look as if you don’t have all day and, frankly, neither do I.”

“Sorry.” Orihime darted into the elevator. Who was this guy, and why had he been coming to see her? “Do we know each other?”

“No, but I did save your life last night.” He held out his hand. “Doctor Szayel Aporro Granz. It’s nice to officially meet you, Ms. Inoue.”

She gave the offered hand a timid shake. So this was the guy who had shined that bright ass light in her eyes? “Nice to meet you too, Doctor Granz.”

“Please! Call me Szayel.” He grinned. “How are you feeling?”

Orihime took a moment to consider that. She wanted a cigarette—the thought of having to go out and find a _real job_ was making her stressed—but she couldn’t have one. It wasn’t a problem now, but when she strangled Ulquiorra with the strap of her purse in a few days it probably would be. “I feel great. And don’t worry, I’m not mad about the IV thing.”

“Thank goodness!” Szayel wiped imaginary sweat from his brow. Then he eyed her suspiciously. “Although, it’s strange that you’re still here despite the fact that you’re feeling well.” He waved his hands. “Not that it’s any of my business.”

Of course not. Orihime rolled her eyes. “I’m, uh, staying with Ulquiorra for a while. But don’t get the wrong idea.”

Szayel’s smile suggested that he had totally gotten the wrong idea. “I won’t tell anyone. Unless you want me to, that is. They’re bound to find out. Especially Nelliel, on the sixth floor; you should watch out for her. She’s a sweet girl but I don’t think you’d get along with her very well.” He gave her a quick once-over. “Hmm… yeah, she’s too cheerful for you.”

“That’s for sure,” Orihime muttered, and at his questioning look she added, “We’ve already been acquainted.”

He laughed as the elevator came to a stop on the eighth floor. “All right then. This is where we say goodbye for now. If you’re ever feeling unwell, I’m in room 807. Don’t hesitate to knock.” He patted her on the shoulder and sauntered out, whistling an upbeat tune. Orihime sighed. Another whacko to avoid whenever possible. What kind of doctor had pink hair?

But it was his kindness that reminded her of another offer she had yet to take advantage of. Orihime walked from the Las Noches apartment tower to the Haineko Diner a few blocks away, where she was greeted at the door by the sweet-faced teenager, Momo. “Welcome! Did you find your anklet?” she asked.

“Sure did! Thanks for your help the other day.” Orihime smiled at her. “Is your manager in?”

Momo nodded. “Follow me!” She directed her towards the back of the restaurant. It was packed with people on their lunch breaks, either enjoying a simple coffee or wolfing down entire meals. Past the bathrooms and an entrance to the kitchen labeled _employees only_ was a somewhat large office. The door was open, and inside sat Rangiku Matsumoto. She stared at a chart on her desk. “Ms. Matsumoto, someone’s here to visit you.”

The beautiful woman looked up from her work and, upon seeing Orihime, grinned and pushed back her office chair. “Hey there, girly! Here to take me up on my offer?” She motioned for Momo’s dismissal and stood, side-stepped the desk, and threw her arm over Orihime’s shoulders companionably. “What can I do you for? We’ve got breakfast going on still, if you wanted to try some of our hash browns. They’re to die for, and I’m not just saying that.”

“Thanks, but I’ve already eaten,” Orihime confessed, though her stomach churned uncomfortably at the thought of Ulquiorra and his damn conditions. “About your offer, does that apply to things other than food?”

Rangiku frowned. “What do you mean?”

Orihime took a deep breath, cringed, and uttered a sentence she never thought she would use in her entire life. “I need a job.”


	6. Improviso

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was written ten years ago.

“Previous experience?”

“None.”

“Current address?”

“I… haven’t memorized it yet.”

“Education?”  
  


“Two years of high school.”

“Girly, you’re not giving me much to work with here.” Rangiku sat at her desk and looked over the job application Orihime had filled out for her. So far, the application was less than half full. “I can’t have you start until we get the basics out of the way, so here’s what I’m going to do.” She set down her pen and slid the application across the desk. “Take this home and fill it out to the best of your ability. It’s just a formality because you’re already hired, but the government says I need this.”

Orihime’s eyes widened. “Really? I got the job?”

Rangiku smiled and leaned back with her hands locked behind her head. Her shirt strained to conceal her massive chest. “Of course! I like you well enough, and I do need a new waitress for the midday shift. With school starting up in a week or two, Momo’s going to be coming in a few hours later.” She sat up again and pulled a schedule from a stack of papers in front of her computer. “Since you’ve never worked before, how does four hours a day sound, just to ease you into it? Ten to two?”

Not too early, not too late. Orihime liked the sound of that. “Sure!” She kind of wanted to ask about the pay, but she decided it didn’t matter much. Money was money, and she wasn’t going to locate a better job right now. “Oh, I found my anklet!” she said suddenly. She fished the gold chain out from the inside of her boot and held it up for Rangiku to see.

“Wow, it’s gorgeous,” Rangiku exclaimed as she admired the anklet. “I can see why you freaked when you lost it. Where was it?”

Orihime could have launched into the story of that fateful day, but she simply replied, “At home,” with a barely concealed growl. Like it or not, Ulquiorra’s place was home now, and she wouldn’t let herself leave until she was mentally stable enough to survive on her own.

…

When she returned to Las Noches later that afternoon, her job application secured in her purse, she found the door to the apartment left unlocked for her. Inside, Ulquiorra sat at the dining table, a sleek black phone pressed to his ear. “I’m aware of that,” he said to whoever was on the line, then sighed. “I remember the numbers. It wasn’t all that long ago, and I… look, what do you want me to do about it? I haven’t spoken a word to him in years. If you’re so concerned about the money, then talk to him yourself.”

Orihime hesitated by the door. He had a hand to his forehead now. What was going on? “No. _No_. I’m not going to change my mind. This has nothing to do with me anymore and I would very much appreciate it if you left me out of your petty squabbles.” And without another word, he pulled the phone from his ear and ended the call. After a tense silence, he looked over his shoulder and offered Orihime a tight smile. “Sorry about that.”

“Is everything okay?” she asked, though it wasn’t any of her business.

“Nothing’s gotten worse. But it’s nothing little girls should concern themselves with,” he replied, his gaze fixed on the piano in the corner. “How did the job search go?”

A blatant change of subject. Orihime pretended not to notice, though the ‘little girl’ comment had been a strike against her nerves. “It was a success! I found one.” She walked over to where he sat and withdrew the application from her purse, then laid it out on the table. “However, I have to finish this first, and I don’t know what your address is.”

“Mine?” Ulquiorra looked at her, his eyebrow raised. “Why not put yours?”

“Your place is closer!” she said, glad that her hair could hide the embarrassed blush crawling to her cheeks. Just because she labeled this place her new, albeit temporary home, didn’t mean its owner felt the same way. “Besides, I’m staying here, aren’t I?”

Ulquiorra chuckled. “Fair enough.” He reached across the table for a stack of mail and handed her an envelope. But while she wrote in his address, he glanced at the application and pointed out her date of birth. “It’s tomorrow.”

“What is?”

“Your birthday.” His green eyes met hers. “Were you planning on celebrating it?”

Truthfully, she hadn’t been. Orihime had stopped celebrating her birthday after Sora died. She couldn’t even remember what she’d done for last year’s, though she had a suspicion that she had gotten drunk out of her mind, hence the gap in her memory. There really wasn’t anything _worth_ celebrating, aside from the fact that she’d no longer need a fake ID to buy beer. “No.”

“Ah, that’s too bad,” Ulquiorra said.

“You wouldn’t have been invited to the party anyway,” she told him frostily.

He cringed and held a hand to his chest. “Ouch. It pains me to hear you say that. And after all these years of friendship, flirting and sexual tension, too.” Orihime bit down on her bottom lip, not wanting to laugh but unable to hold back a smile. The fact that he’d said it all in such a flat monotone wasn’t helping.

“You’re so full of shit.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say to someone you’ve just met.”

“What happened to all those years of friendship, flirting and sexual tension?”

“I must have had you confused with someone else.” He waved his hand flippantly, stood from the table, and headed towards the hallway. “I have to work tomorrow anyway. However, I promise that I will find an appropriate gift for you, Ms. Inoue. Perhaps an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting under the guise of a surprise birthday party.” He ducked his head as her pen sailed past him. “Or a paid martial arts class for you to vent all of that suppressed rage!”

Orihime scowled as he disappeared into his bedroom. What the hell kind of a joke was that? He didn’t know her—well, she hadn’t exactly given him a decent first impression. Or a second one, for that matter. Her stomach growled. It was dinnertime and she hadn’t eaten since Ulquiorra had taken her out earlier. She left the application on the table and walked after him. She found him in his bedroom, looking through the bin of folders. “Hey, so, is it alright if I get a few things from my apartment?” she asked. “I’m sure the generous person who leant me these clothes wants them back.”

Ulquiorra lifted one of the folders and flipped it open, then set it down on the bed. “You are absolutely right,” he said. He turned to his closet door and slid it aside. Orihime took the opportunity to notice the surprising amount of variety in his wardrobe. Was that a _tuxedo_ in there? Maybe he was a secret agent! The piano teacher thing was just his cover. By night he wooed beautiful Russian spies and got information out of them with wine and gentle lovemaking. Her eyes widened with excitement. “If you will give me just a moment, I would be more than happy to drive you there,” he said.

What was with him, anyway? One minute he was snidely commenting on her drinking problem, the next he was being nice and generous. He could have had a split personality. That would also explain the variety in his wardrobe. Who was the real Ulquiorra, then? She decided that he would be the kind side. His evil alter ego would be Batman. No, that didn’t work, Batman was a superhero. Taco? Paco. She was going to call him Paco. Her eyes narrowed. Paco was going to get his ass kicked if he didn’t watch his mouth.

“Ms. Inoue, you’re staring.”

“What? Oh, sorry. I thought I’d seen Satan for a moment, but I guess that was just you,” she snapped.

“Please, you’ll make me blush,” Ulquiorra replied tonelessly as he pulled open a file cabinet deep within the closet, rifled through it and muttered to himself. “You know, I could have sworn I had these organized by composer, but now I’m not so sure.” He sighed. “How do you deal with stress, Ms. Inoue? Me, I have the strangest habit of rearranging everything in my house, furniture included. It drives the neighbors insane, but it almost feels like I’ve gone somewhere else for a while. For example”—he patted the top of the file cabinet—“this used to be outside, in that far corner across from where you’re standing, and every piece of music in here was alphabetized by title. Two months ago, I had it by the desk and everything inside was arranged from slowest to fastest tempo.” He paused. “And I’m not sure, but I think I used to have a bunk bed.”

“Sounds like _you_ need a life,” Orihime said, though her coping mechanism wasn’t much better. “I violently murder my brain cells when I’m stressed.”

“So I’ve noticed.” _Paco emerges._ “However, I won’t judge you for that. There are many people out there who do the same, and unfortunately, it’s hereditary. Had I not found you unconscious in an alley and reeking of alcohol last week, I would never have pegged you for a heavy drinker.”

Orihime blinked, surprised. “Really?”

Ulquiorra found the piece he had been searching for, closed the file cabinet with his foot, and slid the closet door back into place. “Really,” he said. He placed the sheet music into the folder on the bed. “You have a sweet face.” His eyes met hers again, and for some reason her heartbeat stuttered a bit. “Good thing I got to know the real you, though. Now it won’t be as much of a surprise when you murder me in my sleep.”

“I’ll only do so if you deserve it, and currently the idea is rather enticing.”

“Do you want me to drive you to your apartment or not?” Ulquiorra withdrew his car keys and jiggled them at her. “I could make you walk, and those boots look awfully uncomfortable. Perhaps I’ll even drive ahead and, upon seeing you in the crowd, I could ask you if you need a ride. Oh, but then you’ll probably just flip me the bird, call me an asshole and tell me to get lost. Am I right, or am I wrong?”

Orihime stared at him. Her jaw slid to the left as she waited out this latest blow to her patience. “Perceptive, huh? I can see where they got it.” As much as she wanted to beat him to death with the nearest object, she instead closed her eyes, took a deep breath and counted backwards from ten, then opened them and looked at him again. “Ulquiorra…” She paused. “What the fuck is your last name?”

He contemplated this for a second. “Schiffer. At least, that’s what was on my birth certificate, but for a few years I went by Ingram. Doesn’t that sound silly?” He put the folder back into its bin and approached her. “Off we go, then. Lead me to this mysterious dwelling of yours, Ms. Inoue.”

Orihime couldn’t help herself. Obviously if he had brought it up, he wanted her to ask. Smug bastard. “Why the two last names?” she said as she moved out of his way and followed him down the hallway. She grabbed her purse from the table as they passed it.

“I,” he began somewhat cheerfully, “am an orphan,” he finished in monotone. “Adopted by the Ingram family at fifteen.” He cringed. “But once I turned eighteen, I went right back to being Ulquiorra Schiffer. It sounded better, I guess. I wanted to ask my birth mother what she thought, but all I found of her was a tombstone in a Seattle graveyard, which dispels the myth that illegal immigrants hug the border.”

“Oh God, and I thought I was depressing.” Orihime shuddered. This guy just _had_ to have a few screws loose. “You say all of that so casually.”

“Does it matter?” He opened the apartment door and turned the lights off while she walked out first. “When you spend your entire life being handed back and forth between people who probably couldn’t give the slightest damn about you, your sense of identity tends to be left behind along the way.”

Was that what had happened to her? For the longest time, she’d been Orihime, the girl who snuck off with boys during lunch to make a quick buck, but that wasn’t an identity she had given herself, just one she’d gone along with. Who would she have been, she wondered, had she never been raped? The whole “productive member of society” thing still made her want to laugh. “Okay, Ulquiorra Schiffer. I think you and I should play a game of twenty questions,” she said as he pressed the down button on the elevator.

“To get to know each other better? What a wonderful idea,” he said in a way that left her guessing as to whether or not he really thought so. “Can I start?”

“You mean right now?”

“I thought that’s what you meant.” The elevator chimed and the doors swung open. Inside, a tall man with short, wavy brown hair and glasses stood with a heavy textbook tucked under his arm. “Good evening, Doctor Aizen,” Ulquiorra greeted him, then turned to Orihime. “Now Ms. Inoue, if you ever want to question my sanity, you can ask this man right here. He’s a psychologist.”

“Nice to meet you,” Orihime muttered, and shook the man’s hand. He smiled at her, an eerie sort of smile that made her withdraw a little quicker than she’d meant to. Chizuru had once told her that psychologists were trained to smile a certain way to get their patients to relax. Like that wasn’t creepy at all.

Ulquiorra went right on as if they were the only two people in the elevator. “Twenty questions… all right, then.” He took in a deep breath, and in his most serious tone of voice asked, “What is your opinion on tomatoes?”

Silence. Orihime could have sworn she heard Doctor Aizen chuckle. “Tomatoes?”

“Answer the question, Ms. Inoue.”

“They’re all right, I guess. Very red.” She scowled. “Why are you asking me about tomatoes?”

“Do you have any idea how important tomatoes are?” Ulquiorra went on, completely serious. “Imagine this: you’re sitting at a fast food restaurant, having just finished a delicious burger and are now eyeing the cup of greasy French fries you have allowed to cool in the interim. What will you eat them with? Dipping them in ice cream may be a suitable alternative, but women tend to worry about their weight and therefore do not often take the road less traveled. Ketchup, Ms. Inoue. We need _tomatoes_ for that.”

“This isn’t what I—”

“Do you know how white rice is made yellow in Latin countries?” he went on, and glared at her as if his having to explain this was her fault. “They use a blend of vegetables, the most common being onion, cilantro, pepper and _tomato_ , Ms. Inoue. Do you get what I’m saying?”

Orihime leaned forward and looked past him to Doctor Aizen. “Is he…?”

“Insane? I’m afraid not. He is in outstanding mental health,” Doctor Aizen said, and pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose.

“Lucky me,” she growled.

Ulquiorra looked up at Aizen as well. “Isn’t she rude, Doctor? Asking such a thing while I’m standing right here?” He shook his head sadly. “Don’t worry, I am to blame for this failure. I’ve been nothing but awful to you, Ms. Inoue, and I humbly ask your forgiveness. I’m not used to having guests, is all.” If this was how he treated his guests, she’d hate to see how he treated his friends. The elevator door slid open and the three of them stepped out onto the ground floor. Aizen waved his goodbye and headed for the front desk. Orihime stared straight ahead, her jaw clenched, not buying Ulquiorra’s apologetic act for one second. If this was his way of trying to _politely_ get her to leave, it was working. Less than a day with the guy and she was pretty sure she hated his guts.

But it was only for a little while, she told herself. And if the building’s resident psychologist said he was sane, well, she had to believe that he was. Besides, now that she thought about it, she’d been the one to verbally attack him first. He could have been mad at her in his own passive-aggressive way.

“What I was going to say,” Orihime told him as they walked out of the building and into the chilly night, “is that the questions in this game should be more relevant.”

“Like what?”

“Like, how old are you?” She put a hand to her chest like a counselor leading a group therapy session. “Tomorrow, I will be twenty-one.” Then she looked at him expectantly.

“Ah.” Ulquiorra nodded his understanding. “Well then, on the first of December, I will be twenty-four.”

Orihime stopped walking. “What?” That had to be a joke. With his strangely sad demeanor, the fact that he was hardly taller than her, and that he could easily pass off as a teenager… twenty- _four_? There was no way! He waited for her to recover from her shock and start walking again. “So you were born in…”

“1985. I’d tell you what it was like, but I was an infant and therefore cannot remember.”

“Obviously.”

“I only say that because I’ve gotten the question before. Mr. Nnoitra allowed one of his women to escape, and they’re never the brightest bulbs in the box but this one was _particularly_ special.” Ulquiorra gave her a serious look. “On a side note, if you ever encounter him unattended, run away. We’re not sure which sewer he crawled out of, but he pays the rent and plays by the rules so the supers can’t kick him out.”

Orihime didn’t exactly want to feel her safety threatened, but she wasn’t planning on spending much time exploring Las Noches. She would hole up at “home” whenever possible, leave only for work, come straight back. It wasn’t a bad plan.

Throughout the ride to her apartment building outside of the Hueco Mundo district, they fired questions back and forth, Ulquiorra’s occasionally straying from relevant but otherwise keeping on track. She learned that his favorite color was white because it had endless potential, he hated both telemarketers and having to repeat himself, and that he purposely avoided the subject of who he had been arguing with and claimed it wasn’t worth mentioning. As payback, she refused to tell him how she ended up as a prostitute. She’d never told anyone about what had transpired between her and her father. Like Ulquiorra’s mysterious caller, it just wasn’t worth mentioning. Unfortunately, they reached the building before she could pry much else out of him, and vise-versa.

Orihime had kind of hoped to not run into Chizuru, as her friend would probably erupt with emotion at the sight of her. She certainly hadn’t expected what happened the moment they stepped into the building. “ _Hi-yah!”_ In the blink of an eye, Ulquiorra found himself trapped in a headlock, doubled over as Chizuru put the squeeze on his neck. “Quick, Hime, call the police!”

“What in the world?” Orihime didn’t move to help Ulquiorra. She kind of enjoyed the sight of him at a disadvantage. _Take that, Paco!_ “Chizuru, what are you doing?”

“Well, you said you were in rehab when you called,” Chizuru said, ignoring the choking sounds her victim was making. “At first I thought that was really great. But then I realized that you would _never_ go to rehab on your own—I’d have to drag you there kicking and screaming—so I figured that it must have been code for a kidnapping! Now call the police, Hime! I’ll use my handcuffs to secure this guy to the bedpost.”

Ulquiorra gave Orihime a pleading look. _Call off your dog,_ it seemed to say. Oh, how she wished she had a camera. “Chizuru, I’m offended by your lack of faith in me and appreciate the concern but I haven’t been kidnapped. I _told_ you that, but you didn’t listen, and now you’re suffocating my friend.”

“Friend?” Chizuru let go of Ulquiorra and he fell onto the floor, sucking in loud gasps of air.

Orihime motioned for her to come closer and whispered in her ear, “He’s the one who found my anklet.” They both stared at his back as it rose and fell with each labored breath he took. “We’re just here to pick up some of my things.”

“Oh.” Chizuru frowned. “Wait, you’re shacking up with some guy you just met?”

“We’re not shacking up.” Orihime made a face. “Trust me, I wouldn’t have sex with this guy, even if he paid me. He’s a psycho.”

Ulquiorra recovered from the assault and stood to his feet, rubbing his sore neck. “That’s an impressive chokehold you’ve got there, Miss, uh…” He held out his hand and Chizuru shook it with an embarrassed smile.

“Honsho,” she said, then leaned closer to Orihime. “Not bad. If I were straight, I’d have had to take him from you.”

“Did you not just hear me call him a psycho?” Orihime said. She brushed past them and fished into her purse for her keys. She felt much better after what she had witnessed. Leave it to Chizuru to make her happy. Ulquiorra followed her and kept a safe enough distance from the other woman to immediately avoid any sort of violence that could have been directed at him.

Chizuru noticed this and held her hands behind her back in a display of goodwill. “Hime, you’re not staying for your birthday tomorrow?” she asked with a pout.

“I can’t.” The apartment door unlocked and she turned to Chizuru with a scowl. “I have to work.” She pushed the door open. “And I don’t mean with men, either. _This_ guy forced me to get a _real_ job.”

“Once again, she speaks as if I’m not here,” Ulquiorra said woefully. He looked around the small, dingy living room, making some observations of his own. The place was obviously a dump. Stains on the walls and carpet, dust everywhere, holes in the worn sofa and a roach crawling up the wall that Orihime viciously kicked with her booted foot, then grimaced and wiped off on the floor. His eyebrow arched. Had she really lived in this disgusting environment for so long? No wonder she was depressed.

Orihime grabbed a plastic bag from the kitchen and went into her bedroom, headed straight for the closet. All she needed were her clothes, undergarments, all her nice smelling bath soaps, and her makeup. She sighed and stared down at the plastic bag. “Chizuru, can you get another bag and throw all my bathroom stuff in there? Make sure that freak doesn’t get past the living room.”

“Anything for you, Hime!” Chizuru chirped, then turned a death glare on Ulquiorra. “Don’t move.”

He waved his hands. “I wasn’t planning on it.” While the women moved around the small apartment with animated chatter, he shoved his hands into his pockets and waited, his green eyes taking in everything they could. This was _her_ life. Empty beer bottles on the weathered coffee table, dirty and unkempt, uncared for. There was something so deliciously sad about it all, something that he stored away for later. Perhaps he was a little crazy, but he’d been told early on that all musicians were, so it wasn’t his fault.

It was only the first day, and Ulquiorra was beginning to see that their relationship would be more mutualistic than Orihime might have realized.

…

On the morning of her twenty-first birthday, Orihime was not surprised to find her gracious host gone. Then again, she had work of her own to attend. With the return of the application, she was allowed to follow Momo around to observe what she did while Rangiku took care of processing the documents. She got to know some of her other coworkers and, for the sake of starting over a new leaf, left out the fact that she had been whoring out her body for most of her life. The only person who really needed to know was Ms. Matsumoto, and she still had to work up the nerve to tell her.

Overall, it was a short day at work. She was allowed to go home after she’d demonstrated what she had learned from Momo on a customer or two, and was given a free milkshake when she let it slip that it was her birthday. Orihime smiled to herself as she walked back to Las Noches. Maybe this job thing wouldn’t be so bad. She’d heard horror stories of people who had awful bosses and petty coworkers, but everyone she had met was perfectly decent.

Upon arriving at Ulquiorra’s door, she saw something new: posted beneath the apartment number was a sign drawn in marker that read **Beware of Dragon**. The moment she opened the door, Ulquiorra emerged from the kitchen with a soda bottle in hand. “Good afternoon, Ms. Inoue!” he said with quiet cheer. “Do you like your birthday present?”

Orihime ripped the sign off the door and stomped forward, determined to shove it down his throat. But Ulquiorra held a hand in front of him before she could get much closer. “Wait!” He placed the soda bottle on the dining table and then motioned for her to join him. “Sit here,” he instructed, and pulled the piano bench out for her. “And give me just a mi—oww,” he finished as she slammed the makeshift sign into his forehead. “I deserved that.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Orihime grumbled. She sat on the piano bench and crossed her arms. “What is it?”

Ulquiorra peeled the sign off his face and sat down next to her, then lifted the cover off the keys. “Your _real_ birthday present,” he said. Then to her surprise, he reached for her chin, tilted her head in another direction, and stared at her for a moment. “Okay.” He turned to the piano and, after a minute of consideration, began to play.

Orihime had half-expected “happy birthday to you”, but the melody that he produced was something entirely different, something that no juvenile could easily mimic. It made her heart ache so painfully that she was tempted to grab his hands and force him to stop. But she couldn’t. She remained seated and drank in the sorrowful piece. And even though she had never heard a song like this before, she couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of familiarity with it. When it ended, the last note hung in the air of the living room like a ghost. “What was that?” she whispered, afraid to disturb it.

“An _improviso_ ,” Ulquiorra replied, “meaning exactly what it sounds like.”

“You _improvised_ that whole thing?” Orihime’s eyes widened.

He stared at his hands as if seeing them for the first time. “Only in the sense that I hadn’t written it down.” Then he let out a short laugh, shook his head, and stood up, his back to her. “Did you like it?”

Orihime wasn’t about to lie to him. “I loved it,” she answered.

“Heh. Good.” He waved his hand. “Feel free to weep at my brilliance.”

She knew that it was meant to be a joke, but there was something weird about the way he had said it, as if the humor hadn’t quite reached the comment as intended. Orihime watched him walk away with his soda bottle in hand, and her eyes narrowed. He was hiding something. That much was becoming obvious. But what sort of secrets did a guy like Ulquiorra have?


	7. Prodigy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was written ten years ago.

Two days after her birthday, Orihime realized in sudden dismay that she had yet to return the clothing Ulquiorra had borrowed for her. The blouse and jeans hung within their garment bag in the back of the previously empty closet by the kitchen, which she had commandeered for her things. It was a nice arrangement. Ulquiorra never used the closet because he kept a coat rack by the front door, so he’d given her the space for her own clothes and shoes. “We certainly can’t have your personal items lying about,” he’d said before throwing her a look that she had come to know well in the short time they had been together. The hooded eyes, the smug smirk tugging up the corner of his mouth, mischief abounding: It was the look of Paco emerging from his cage. “My neighbors will think I’m keeping a prostitute in here.”

Had Orihime known how long she planned to stay, she would have started counting down the days until she left. But at the present moment, her eyes glazed over as she envisioned herself strangling Ulquiorra with her stockings, then perhaps calling Chizuru over to help her throw his body out the window while he was unconscious. When the police came up to question her, she would either be on her way to the Canadian border, or she’d put on a good show of crying and pretending he’d been suicidal.

Orihime looked over her shoulder. Ulquiorra sat at the dining table and frowned down at a notebook used for writing music. The page, she noticed, had been completely filled, so why was he staring at it as if the page was as empty as it had been when he’d sat down with it an hour ago? “Hey.” She waved at him to get his attention. “These clothes need to be returned.”

Ulquiorra lifted his head a slight degree with a soft “hmm” and tapped his pencil against the sheet in front of him, but otherwise he didn’t even look at her. Orihime rolled her eyes, took the garment bag down from the closet, and carefully draped it over her arm before closing the door.

“Well?” she asked. “I don’t exactly know who it belongs to.”

Ulquiorra ran a hand through his black hair, but it magically resettled, something Orihime wished her own hair would do. “I’m busy,” he said, though she saw nothing busy about whatever he was doing. “You don’t know sign language, do you?”

She made a face. “No.”

“That is a problem. The nice woman who owns those clothes is mute.” He finally tore his eyes away from his work and turned in his chair to look at her. He crossed his arms and tapped the pencil against his own skin, obviously displeased at having to focus on something else for two whole seconds. “Have you, by any chance, met Nelliel? She’s a French girl who lives on the sixth floor, and honestly, I’d be quite surprised if you hadn’t run into her by now.”

Orihime laughed. “Oh, I’ve met her.” She shook her head as she remembered the hyper, green-haired foreigner who she had magically avoided for the last few days. “She helped me look for my anklet.”

“Good, good.” Ulquiorra reached for the notebook, then thought twice, stood from the table, and walked past Orihime into the kitchen. He pulled open a drawer by the refrigerator and withdrew a small notepad on which he quickly jotted something down before tearing off the top sheet and handing it to her. “There’s her room number. If her boyfriend answers, tell him he owes me twenty dollars and if I don’t see them by Friday there will be hell to pay.”

“What kind of hell?” Orihime asked, unable to resist finding out what kind of revenge the meticulous pianist could come up with.

Ulquiorra shrugged. “I’ll tell Nel that he’s cheating on her again. May not sound like much, but when you hear the ensuing violence you’ll probably wonder if the world is coming to an end.” He moved his hand in a shooing motion. “Off you go. If you disturb me again, I’ll glue your shoes to the hallway ceiling and staple your unmentionables to the wallpaper in the elevator.”

“God, Paco, ever heard of Midol?” Orihime snatched the paper from him and stomped out of the apartment, leaving Ulquiorra in the kitchen to wonder who Paco was. What the fuck was his problem? He’d been even more insufferable lately, if that was possible. Yesterday he had come back later than usual and holed up in his bedroom without saying a word to her. This morning she had been woken up by some twisted, borderline demonic version of Chopsticks that she was sure would cause her nightmares. “Whatever,” she muttered as the elevator chimed pleasantly overhead. “Maybe I’ll buy him a piñata to take his diva tantrum out on.”

“Sounds like fun!” She gasped as she realized that the elevator was not empty. In the corner stood Gin Ichimaru, the silver-haired man who mostly ran the front desk on the first floor, his ever-present smile stretching further as he realized that he had startled her. “Sorry about that, Ms. Inoue.”

Orihime stepped in next to him. “Don’t worry about it.” She took a deep breath to calm her jumpy heart and pressed the button next to the number six. Gin was actually easy to get along with, though his perma-smile was creepy as hell. “Say, what size tampons do you think Ulquiorra uses? He might be close to his period.”

“Hmm, that all depends on whether or not his virginity is still intact.” Gin curled his index finger in on the space next to this thumb. “I mean, if he’s tight like this he might need the light ones.”

Orihime giggled. She’d gotten to know Gin a little better when she’d officially listed herself as a resident of Las Noches—it was Ulquiorra’s idea—as he was the go-to person for problems in the building. She was glad she could count on him for a decent laugh, at least. If she didn’t know any better, she would say that his brand of humor reminded her of someone, though she wasn’t sure who. “Great. I’ll get him some pantyliners while I’m at it.” The elevator door opened onto the sixth floor.

“Where are you going?” Gin asked her as she walked out into the hallway.

“Hell, I think,” Orihime replied. She was beginning to regret not taking a pain killer before she left. Nel’s cheer was bound to give her a headache. She glanced down at the piece of paper Ulquiorra had given her and she noticed a neatly written note beneath the door number. _By the way, the woman you will be addressing is Ms. Tia Harribel. Don’t ask about her face._ She frowned. Well, whatever that meant, she would find out soon enough.

Orihime knocked on the appointed door and waited. From somewhere down the hall, she could hear loud, lively pop music playing and a voice yelling out instructions. “ _Come on, ladies! Try again! One, two, three, four! Lift those legs!_ ”

Before she had time to investigate, the lock clicked and the door swung open, revealing Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck in all her German-French glory. Heavily perfumed and clad in a sky blue dress with strappy heels, her green eyes flew wide at the sight of Orihime. “Ms. Guest!” she cried, immediately leaning forward and kissing both her cheeks. “You have returned! You found anklet?”

It seemed as if years had passed since that wonderful day, when she’d thought of Ulquiorra as a kind, if not sad patron of goodness and charity. “Yes, I did. Thanks for your help. Oh, I kind of live here now, so you should probably stop calling me a guest,” she admitted. “My name is Orihime Inoue.”

“Orihime, like sky princess of folklore?”

She blinked in surprise. Well, that had certainly come out of nowhere. “Yeah. Not a lot of people know that.”

Nel clapped her hands. “I take world mythology class in college!” Then she seemed to remember her manners and stood aside. “Ah, do come in! Boyfriend is gone again. He say he is working extra hard to pay Mr. Schiffer his twenty dollars back, but I think he is off chasing after, how you say… random skanks,” she said with a hint of violence as Orihime walked past her into the small apartment.

“Bummer,” Orihime replied without much feeling. “Why don’t you just dump him?”

Nel stared at her for a moment, then laughed and rolled her eyes. “Because I love him, of course!” And she waved her hand as if Orihime had asked her the stupidest question ever. Orihime had half a mind to slap her. “What brings you to me this afternoon?” Nel chirped, then noticed the garment bag. “Oh! You need to return to Ms. Harribel on third floor?”

“Yeah, apparently I need to know sign language?”

“ _Oui_! Ms. Harribel has not spoken single word in many years.” Nel shook her head sadly. “Luckily, I will help you!” She began looking around for her keys, which she found sitting on the couch. Orihime waited as Nel grabbed her things and locked the apartment door before leading her outside. “What floor do you live on?” she asked as she charged energetically toward the elevator.

“Fourth,” Orihime replied, then added as an afterthought, “with Ulquiorra.”

Sensing gossip, Nel cooed with delight, her eyes on fire with curiosity. “Do tell!”

“It’s nothing, really.” Orihime scowled. “I would rather _not_ live with him, as he is an absolute terror, but his rules keep my mind goal-oriented.”

“A terror?” The elevator door came open and the two stepped inside. “Mr. Schiffer, a terror? No, no, no, Ms. Orihime, you are mistaken,” Nel said, pressing the button next to the number three. “Mr. Schiffer is very kind person. Usually quiet and out of the way, very fair.” She nodded, quite sure of herself. “We like and respect him a lot.”

Orihime stared at Nel as if she had sprouted half a goat body. “Is there another Mr. Schiffer in the building?” she asked, just to be certain. Now she was definitely considering the split personality theory. He had these nice people convinced that he was some kind of saint? Then again, he’d had her pretty convinced in the beginning, before she had gotten to know Paco on a personal basis.

Nel shook her head. “You and boyfriend Grimmjow both, I do not understand. Boyfriend is very, how you say, _wary_ of Mr. Schiffer. He acts as if that nice man is some kind of monster. And me, I just laugh and say, ‘But _mon cher_ , he is shorter than myself!’ How could such small person be evil?”

Orihime felt goosebumps rising on the skin of her arm. This was _way_ creepy. What if he was one of those psychopaths she’d read about? No, Doctor Aizen would have warned her about something like that. Then again, Doctor Aizen had been fairly eerie himself. Maybe there was some kind of conspiracy going on in Las Noches. What if she had accidentally stumbled into an apartment building for crazy people? She looked up at Nel, a bit frightened. Was she being led somewhere to be experimented on? Oh, how she wished she had brought along the mace she kept in her purse.

“Here we are!” Nel said as the elevator ascended to the third floor and opened for them. The room they were looking for wasn’t very far down the hall, and she knocked on the door rhythmically, suggesting to Orihime that she ought to memorize that knock for the future. “Ms. Harribel, it is Nelliel! I have brought guest!”

After a moment, the door opened, and a tall woman with dark skin, blond hair and a rather athletic build stood before them. Orihime saw what Ulquiorra had meant by not asking about her face: the woman’s mouth was completely covered by the collar of her jacket, revealing nothing underneath, which was strange considering that her outfit allowed most of the rest of her body to be seen. Nel pushed Orihime forward. “Uh, hi,” she started off lamely, wanting to kick herself. “My name is Orihime Inoue, and I wanted to return this to you.” With shaking hands, she held out the garment bag to the woman. “Ulquiorra borrowed them for me a few days ago. I’m sorry I didn’t bring them back sooner, but thank you for lending them to me. They were a lot of help.”

The woman took the garment bag wordlessly, but she offered Orihime a kind nod. Then she signed something, which Nel translated. “She asks if you are new to building.”

Orihime smiled. “Yeah, I am. I guess I’ll be seeing you around more often?”

Tia Harribel nodded again, then motioned for them to stay put and retreated into the apartment. Orihime noticed that this one was bigger than Ulquiorra’s. Did they get larger the further up one went in Las Noches? It was impeccably clean, and hanging on the wall was a portrait of a younger Harribel with three other girls, all of them wearing similar outfits and smiling. One of them was dark skinned like her, the other two fair-skinned, and Tia seemed to be the only blond among the group. Orihime looked at Nel questioningly, pointing out the picture. “I tell you later,” Nel whispered.

Tia returned then and presented Orihime with what appeared to be a store coupon. She examined it curiously. “Ms. Harribel runs clothing boutique in Hueco Mundo district,” Nel explained for her, “and new neighbors always get something free!”

“Oh!” Orihime looked up at the woman, whose sharp green eyes were narrowed in a manner that suggested she might have been smiling beneath the collar of her jacket. “Thank you very much.” And Ms. Harribel nodded again before signing a farewell and closing the door. Orihime and Nel walked back toward the elevator, mission accomplished. “I didn’t want to seem rude, but the whole collar thing was kind of weird.”

Nel nodded. “It is very sad. A few years ago, Ms. Harribel was driving car when she lost control and swerved off of road. Terrible accident. It was all over local news.” She shook her head. “The worst part is that her three little sisters, who were in car with her, all died. Ms. Harribel has not spoken single word since accident out of incredible grief.”

Orihime cringed and looked back at the door they had left behind as the elevator chimed overhead. The poor woman. “ _Bonjour_ Doctor Granz!” Nel’s voice refocused her attention. Inside the elevator stood the pink-haired doctor carrying a huge file in one hand and a bag of medical instruments in the other.

“ _Bonjour_ Nelliel! And Ms. Inoue, too? Why am I not surprised?” He moved aside to let them in, grinning from ear to ear.

“Were you visiting Mr. Luisenbarn on second floor? I will be there later,” Nel said, then turned to Orihime to explain. “Mr. Luisenbarn is old family friend from Germany, who lives on second floor and found apartment for boyfriend and I when we come from France. He is ninety years old and in failing health, unfortunately.”

“And I attend to his medical needs,” Szayel added, looking rather proud of himself. “So Ms. Inoue, how goes life with Ulquiorra?”

“Rotten,” Orihime replied. She took a deep breath for the rant that was about to burst from her. “He’s sarcastic, mean, spoiled, dramatic, manipulative, whines like a little bitch when he doesn’t get his way, and he’s utterly two-faced. I hate him with a burning passion and, if allowed, I would probably push him down this elevator shaft and laugh when his innards splat all over the basement floor.”

Szayel and Nel exchanged confused glances, then Szayel replied, “Are you sure this is _Ulquiorra_ you’re talking about? Black hair, green eyes, on the short side, always wearing a victimized expression?”

“That’s the one,” Orihime muttered. Nobody had pressed a floor button yet so the elevator was stuck in place. “And that’s after less than a week of living with the guy. God forbid I have to stay here for longer than a month.” She sighed. “I mean, it wouldn’t be so bad if his moods didn’t swing as often as they do. He’s got to have a split personality or something—I call the asshole-ish one Paco—because he’s had his decent moments. Like on my birthday! He played me this really nice piece on the piano—”

“Whoa, whoa! Hold the phone!” Szayel dropped his bag of instruments and both he and Nel leaned closer, their eyes wide. “He _played_ something for you?”

“Was it something you have heard before? Like ‘Moonlight Sonata’ or ‘Claire de Lune’?” Nel demanded.

Orihime pressed herself back against the wall. These people were getting _way_ too close to her. “No, I’d never heard it before, but I’m not exactly a classical music buff. He could have played me the most well-known piece in the piano world and it would’ve gone over my head.”

“What did it sound like?” Szayel asked.

“Umm, sad?” She remembered the way the notes had surrounded her heart, determined to squeeze it until the poor, abused organ burst. “Borderline depressing.” Then she realized that their sudden, overly abundant interest was more than a little queer. “Why do you ask?”

Szayel and Nel drew back and shared a glance before looking down at her. “Ms. Orihime, do you even know who you are living with?” Nel asked, not unkindly.

She frowned. “Yeah. Ulquiorra Schiffer, an emotionally unstable musician. Which, now that I think about it, isn’t all that strange.”

“No, no! You silly girl.” Szayel shook his head in disbelief, then motioned for Nel to carry on. She inhaled deeply, as if ready to launch into a lecture on the significance of teaching history in elementary schools.

“Mr. Ulquiorra Schiffer,” she said, “is a piano prodigy, considered to be genius in the classical music world. He has been composing since he was three years old, had first major concert at five, has been on countless radio and television shows and many magazine interviews. At twelve he wrote score for a Broadway musical using only piano, helped by others to convert to other instruments.”

“Don’t forget the opera,” Szayel said.

“Ah, yes, he wrote music and lyrics for opera, too, called _L’acqua Di Vita_ ,” Nel added. “His compositions are so popular that you can still find them on piano collection CDs. Once, I heard one playing while ordering latte at café down the street.”

“I heard one when I was at the bookstore last week.”

“The point being”—Nel grabbed Orihime by the shoulders—“six years ago, Ulquiorra stopped playing. He canceled performances, tours, and simply dropped off of face of planet. Nobody knew why, and nobody knew where he went.”

“Except for us,” Szayel said. “Nel and Grimmjow weren’t here yet, but you can imagine how surprised the older of us were when world-renowned, eighteen-year-old Ulquiorra Schiffer turned up in Las Noches, of all the God forsaken places on Earth, looking for an apartment.” He sighed. “No one ever asked him why he disappeared so suddenly. He’s never volunteered to talk about it. The few times that anyone has ever heard him play the piano, it’s all been classical songs and Christmas carols when we have our yearly shindig.”

“However, his neighbors say that sometimes they have heard him trying to compose something. He does not get very far.” Nel’s bottom lip stuck out in a pout.

“Whatever made him stop has completely killed the guy’s inspiration,” Szayel said. “Then again, looking at the last few things he composed, it seemed as if it had been a long time coming.”

“What do you mean?” Orihime asked.

“Well, he used to write all kinds of music. But the last one or two CDs his record company churned out were so dark and sinister that critics claimed it gave them chills.” The doctor shivered. “And they were right. The second to last CD… my God. He must have been pretty fucked in the head, pardon my language.”

Orihime stood in front of them, and it was odd but she felt… betrayed. Here she’d been living with the guy long enough for him to know that she was a prostitute, but he hadn’t thought to inform her that he was an angst-ridden ex-celebrity? The fact that he had skeletons in his closet certainly explained his moodiness, and made the mystery of who he had been arguing with on the phone that much more interesting. But still, he could have given her a heads up. That actually kind of pissed her off. “Huh,” she said. “Well, that’s good to know. Thank you for telling me.”

Nel pressed the numbers four, six and eight for them, finally prompting the elevator into action, but both she and Szayel seemed lost in thought. “She hasn’t heard any of his other pieces—”

“—not that she knows of, anyway—”

“—so he could have been playing something from the past?” Nel finished.

Orihime remembered the notebook Ulquiorra had been glaring at earlier, as well as what he had told her after playing the piece for her. “No, it wasn’t, because he said he had improvised it,” she said. “And he was writing it down today.”

“Oh my God.” Szayel’s eyes flew wide.

“This is _magnifique!_ ” Nel squealed as the elevator came to a stop on the fourth floor. “Ms. Orihime, please do come tell us if he composes anything else! Oh, I am so excited! I must call Grimmjow and tell him!”

“Yeah.” Orihime stepped out of the elevator and waved at them. “I’ll see you guys later, okay?” Irritation began to gnaw at the edges of her mind again. She needed a cigarette to calm her nerves, or a beer to help her think, or some really good drug to make her forget the fact that she was mad at Ulquiorra. But she had neither, and so the moment she entered the apartment and found him frowning down at his notebook again, she slammed the door shut and crossed her arms. He didn’t even flinch. “I’m back.”

“You took your time,” Ulquiorra said distractedly.

Orihime marched straight to the console that housed the television and movies, and pried open the front cabinet where he kept his CDs. Sure enough, after scouring through various piano CDs, the occasional classic rock album, and some live concerts she found a small stack of unlabeled discs hidden between the others. She withdrew them and looked at the words written on each. _1995 – 1997, final. Piano Collection II, final. L’acqua Di Vita, w/o vocals._ There were at least twelve of them wedged into her hand, all the final cuts of the CDs before being released in stores. Orihime’s jaw clenched. “Hey, so, thanks for letting me in on the whole celebrity thing,” she said in a mock-casual tone as she jammed the stack back into place. “It’s not like it was all that important, and besides, it was fun hearing it from other people. Made me feel really fucking smart.”

When she closed the console cabinet and stood up, she gasped as she turned to find Ulquiorra right behind her. He didn’t look happy. “Who told you?” His voice was low, even. Orihime found it harder to keep up her own anger.

“What does it matter? The entire fucking building knows, right?”

Ulquiorra’s eyes narrowed, and Orihime could have sworn she saw his jaw clench. “It’s none of your business.”

“Of course it isn’t! _They_ aren’t the ones who live with you, and yet they get to know and I don’t? That’s perfectly fair!”

Orihime cried out in alarm when, without warning, he drove his fist into the wall behind her, the loud _thud_ surely making the next-door neighbors jump. She stood frozen, eyes wide, and watched the anger that had propelled his arm die almost as quickly as it had surged. “Of course it’s fair,” he said. “ _You_ are _my_ guest, woman. I’ll tell you whatever the hell I feel like telling you, and if you can’t deal with that, the door is right there.” But he didn’t sound like he meant it. He sounded tired, like punching the wall had taken all his strength away.

“Why don’t you just kick me out if you want me gone?” she whispered.

Ulquiorra said nothing. He withdrew his hands and examined the one he had hit the wall with. His knuckles were bleeding, and his entire arm shook in pain. “Damn it.” He turned away from her, shoved his hands into his pockets, and withdrew his keys. “I’ll be back later.”

Orihime watched him as he retreated, her weak knees finally giving out when the front door closed behind him. The million-dollar question now was, _who_ would he be when he came back?


End file.
